


when the first bombs fell we were already bored

by kindclaws



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Bechdel Test Pass, Disabled Character, Epistolary, F/F, F/M, Gen, Mixed Media, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Drift cuddlepiles, Social Media, pretend twitter is still popular in 2025
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:04:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4537320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindclaws/pseuds/kindclaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rangers Clarke Griffin and Wells Jaha are drift-compatible but refuse to pilot together. When Kane pressures them to find a solution, Raven Reyes and Bellamy Blake step up to the challenge. The months that follow are a whirlwind of Kaiju, media speculation, and quiet moments between battles that let unexpected partnerships grow. In the aftermath of the apocalypse, everyone wonders who piloted the very last Jaeger. The ones who know, aren’t telling. </p><p>(Literally a mixed media fic. Don't try reading it on mobile I'm pretty sure it'll crash and burn.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. veni

**Author's Note:**

> Story title taken from The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. Alternate title was: How Clarke Griffin Learned To Stop Worrying and Pull The Lever.
> 
> Please note that this story isn't told chronologically! The tweets/newspaper clippings have helpful dates, and I'm hoping everything else fits in context. If there's a part that confuses you, feel free to point it out!
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: minor character death, descriptions of injury, flashbacks/disassociation, some characters probably have ptsd. Most of that happens in the next chapter, but is hinted at in this one.

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _*click*_
> 
> SYDNEY: The date is January 14th 2025, it's now fifteen minutes past 09 hours. This interview was _supposed_ to begin on the hour -
> 
> REYES: See, I don't know if anyone's told you, but I'm literally paralyzed. I can't move very fast, okay? Monty and Jasper were using the only elevator near the medical bay to transport bits of dead Kaiju baby and I wasn't about to tip my wheelchair down three flights of stairs just so I could see your ugly face faster.
> 
> KANE: Raven, please.
> 
> SYDNEY: _As I was saying_ , this interview is the first in a series to determine if Ark Shatterdome should be held responsible for the inefficient use of funds and resources -
> 
> REYES: Are you [CENSORED] kidding me? We saved the whole [CENSORED] world. You're going to sue us for that? Are you out of your mind?
> 
> KANE: _Raven!_
> 
> SYDNEY: Please state your name and rank for the record.
> 
> REYES: Why, you already know me.
> 
> KANE: Raven, until the media lockdown is lifted, this is your only chance to tell your version of the story. Please take it seriously.
> 
> REYES: Fine, I'll do it. But you might want to tell K-Science about the lockdown, they've been tweeting non-stop.
> 
> SYDNEY: Are you done wasting my time, Miss Reyes?
> 
> REYES: I am if you're done wasting mine. Raven Reyes, formerly Jeager Tech, now ex-pilot of the _Princess Mechanic_.
> 
> SYDNEY: Please describe your relation to both Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin.
> 
> REYES: We're [CENSORED]-ing. 
> 
> KANE: - I thought you were going to take this seriously.
> 
> REYES: I'm getting there, sheesh! Okay. I've known Bellamy about 2 years now. Maybe 3. By the time he was transferred to Ark, we were already shrinking, so pretty much everyone in the Shatterdome knew of each other. We became friends a few months after that. He was... always kind to me.
> 
> SYDNEY: Tell us about Miss Griffin now.
> 
> REYES: Clarke is... was... my co-pilot.
> 
> SYDNEY: Go on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 11:37 AM June 21 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_From:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ seriously?

We had a deal, Abby. I was promised two brand new pilots. Surprise! Just picked them up from the airport and found out that they refuse to drift together even though they have one of the highest sync rates I've seen in years. Now I have to go through the bother of setting them up with my own recruits. You better have a good explanation for this.

Marcus

  
_[sent 1:32 PM June 21 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinclarke@ppdc.com  
_From:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ hello clarke

Clarke, darling, send me an email when you've reached Ark. I want to hear all about it!  
I know the last few weeks have been rough but I hope you'll understand why it was all necessary when you're older. Please don't hold it against Wells, he's not the one to blame in all this. You two have so much potential!  
I love you, honey. Never forget that.  
\- Abby

  
_[sent 1:37 PM June 21 2024]_  
_To:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_From:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ re: seriously?

It's a long story. A very long one.  
\- Abby

  
_[sent 3:02 PM June 21 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinclarke@ppdc.com  
_From:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ clarke, please

Clarke,  
At least tell me you've landed safely and settled in.  
\- Abby

  
_[sent 7:12 PM June 21 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinclarke@ppdc.com  
_From:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ please

Home feels smaller already without you here. Please, honey, talk to me. I'll be waiting. I love you.  
\- Abby

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
Seven months before the end of the world, Clarke steps off a helicopter and onto a rain-soaked landing pad. The Ark Shatterdome looms up in front like a hulking shadow, looking ever more menacing with the fog that blurs its edges.

"Impressive, huh?" Wells shouts over the sound of the helicopter blades slowly winding down. He's appeared at her right side, like he still belongs there. As long as Clarke can remember, Wells has stood at her right side, calm and firm. She turns away. She doesn't want him there anymore.  
  
Clarke strides ahead after Kane, pulling the collar of her coat up to shield her neck from the cold rain that slithers down her hair. Wells follows doggedly. It was too loud in the helicopter to talk, but she should have known that reprieve wouldn't last once they arrived.

They duck through the open doors to the Shatterdome and dodge parka-wearing transport crews pushing crates and scrap metal across the foyer. Clarke takes a moment to run her hands through her hair, grimacing at the water that slicks off, and tries not to look like she's completely lost.

"Do you want to get settled in your apartments first, or begin the tour?" Kane asks absently, scanning over their heads as though searching for someone else in the crowd. Clarke glances at the single backpack she has slung over one shoulder. It's not too heavy - toiletries, two other changes of clothes, a ratty notebook she doodled in during the helicopter ride, and her father's watch. Nowadays people don't have much in the way of personal possessions. She doesn't feel the need to drop hers off any time soon.  
  
"Tour," Wells says decisively, and she's vaguely annoyed with him for responding so quickly. Even now, after they haven't spoken in weeks, they're still on the same page.  
  
"Very well. Ah, there he is!" Kane says, raising a hand to greet a surly-looking man striding towards them, barely avoiding knocking shoulders with the workers that swarm the building. "Clarke, Wells, meet my right hand man and adopted son, Bellamy Blake."  
  
Later, Clarke will note this as a pivotal moment in her life. But only later. At the time, she sees only dark eyes that drag from the toes of her combat boots to her wet, stringy hair, and freckles, and a mouth set firmly in disappointment.

"You're Jake Griffin's girl, aren't you."

"I'm here by my own merit," Clarke says coldly, raising her chin defiantly. Wells shuffles nervously at her side.

"I'm sure you are. Pleasure to meet you," Bellamy says, looking rather like it isn't. He hardly spares either Clarke or Wells a second look or a handshake and turns instead to Kane. "I've added them into the system already. Here are the keycards and two spare lanyards," he says, pushing a manila envelope into Wells' hands. He immediately cracks it open and peeks inside, then tilts it so Clarke can see the plastic edges of their new identification inside. She doesn't thank him.  
  
"Good work, Bellamy," Kane says approvingly. Bellamy inclines his head as though acknowledging the praise.  
  
"Uniforms are on the beds of their respective apartments, along with a stack of the files of every unpartnered pilot in the Shatterdome," Bellamy says, as though reciting from a paper.

"Do you always talk to people like they're not standing right in front of you?" Clarke asks, fingering the dog tags around her neck out of habit. Bellamy finally looks back at her, his face completely impassive.  
  
"When they disappoint me before they've even set foot in my Shatterdome, yes," Bellamy says, and Clarke fights down the urge to punch him in the face. Beside them, Kane looks mildly disapproving, but says nothing. "Dinner is served at 7. I'd recommend not being late. Kane, sir, there's a situation in K-Science that requires your attention."  
  
"Now?"  
  
"Now," Bellamy confirms. Kane sighs heavily.  
  
"Will you two be all right to find your way around?" he asks Clarke and Wells, an apology clear in his eyes.  
  
"It can't be much different from our home Shatterdome," Wells says pleasantly, and Clarke's skin prickles when Kane takes his leave. She watches him stride away with Bellamy Blake miserably and wishes they hadn't left her alone with Wells. She doesn't know what to do with him.  
  
Abruptly, Clarke spins on her heel and darts between two forklifts, following the greater flow of movement to what must be the hangar. Distantly she hears Wells calling after her, but that doesn't matter right now. She steps into the hangar and immediately feels all the breath rush out of her lungs.

Ark Shatterdome had four Jaegers to begin with - two of which are fully operational and are currently being repaired by a flurry of mechanics on hanging platforms and catwalks. Both _Mariposa Blue_ and _Eagle Defiant_ have several kills under their belt and have a habit of working well together, the _Mariposa's_ agility balancing out _Defiant's_ sheer strength. The third is a scavenged model whose original pilots died long ago, and stands dark and silent off to the side. The fourth is a Mark V prototype they're calling _Commander_ _Woods_ , full of sleek lines and gorgeous edges. It's currently undergoing renovation to allow for an unusual three-pilot system rather than the standard two. The team garnered a lot of scrutiny when they were announced, with everyone and their mother trying to 'figure out who the third wheel' was.

And the fifth Jaeger - well, the fifth was Clarke's and Wells'. She feels a pang of pain as her eyes slide to the newest arrival to Ark. After they'd passed their exams, she and Wells bribed a friend of theirs to let them sneak into the Conn-Pod afterhours, and they sat in the space between the two motion rigs they would soon occupy and got drunk on aged whiskey, talking about all the dangers that lay up ahead.

They never imagined that future would be cut short.

"Isn't she gorgeous?" Wells says, and Clarke turns to look at him instinctively and sees his eyes shining as he stares up at the same Jaeger - _their Jaeger_. There's a soft smile playing on his lips, and the sight of it suddenly makes her furious.

"Let's get one thing straight," Clarke hisses, whirling on the boy who used to be her best friend. The smile slips off his face. "You and I are never going to pilot together. Not ever. I am never going to forgive you for nearly getting me thrown out of the Academy."

For a long time he just stares at her, an immeasurable sadness in his eyes, and Clarke is only distantly aware of all the bustling activity around them because it's like the universe has shrunk down to just her and Wells, standing at the foot of the Jaeger they once promised to pilot together. Now all that's left are the broken pieces of a promise.  
  
"I don't want to push you to drift with me," Wells says, so quietly Clarke isn't sure how she hears him above the hammering and the whine of metal welding going on over their heads.

"Oh," she says, feeling off balance. She expected him to argue. She expected him to point out that they still have an 89% sync rate in simulations, that the hours of practice they've logged together haven't been erased by the divide between them, that you don't even have to like someone to drift with them. She didn't expect him to just... give in. "Well. Okay."  
  
"I'm going to go find my apartment," Wells says, hitching his backpack a little higher up his shoulder. "Take care."  
  
Somehow, watching him turn around and walk back out of the hangar, Clarke's left feeling like she's the one who's lost a battle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Clarke is ten years old, she gets a camera for her birthday. Abby disapproves, says it's too fragile and expensive of a gift for a little girl, but Jake just laughs and ruffles Clarke's hair as she starts fiddling with the lens. Clarke takes pictures of everything - the houseplants, Well's dainty tortoiseshell cat, the sunset as seen from her bedroom window. Her father likes her landscape shots the best, so Clarke makes Wells climb the town's water tower with her, even though he's not fond of heights, and he holds onto her while she leans away from the ladder to photograph the whole town laid before them like a map. 

A year later the first Kaiju comes through the breach, and the town remains immortalized only in Clarke's photos. Wells' cat disappears in the aftermath, but they both steadfastedly refuse to believe anything's happened to her, and scream and kick when the trucks arrive to take them to a refugee camp. After the second attack, and then the third, Abby and Jake look at each other and decide, without asking Clarke, that they're signing up for the newborn PPDC.

"I want to pilot a Jaeger too," Clarke whispers, winding her skinny arms around her father's neck when he tells her he's going to leave for training. "I'm old enough, I promise. I can be your co-pilot, not that Kane man. He never smiles."

But he goes anyway. Clarke and Wells grow up in the Shatterdome, and for all that they're in the same building, she hardly sees him. 

Afterwards, she takes out all the photographs that have survived the test of time, and she stares at them until she figures out why they look so wrong. In every single one, the horizon is off-kilter, but only very slightly, just enough that her brain doesn't immediately realize it's diagonal and is left uneasy instead. After she and Wells are accepted into the Jaeger Academy at age eighteen, Clarke takes her mother's scissors and trims them to make the horizon straight, and hides the cut-offs under the bed. 

The first time she and Wells do a sync test, after the instructors pull the plug, Clarke lurches off the motion rig and vomits. Wells falls to his knees beside her, throws an arm around her shoulders and presses her into his side like he can physically melt them into one being again. Clarke thinks of her photographs. The pilots interviewed on talk shows and red carpets go on and on about how weird it is to pour themselves into two bodies after growing used to being one mind, and Clarke gets that, yeah, but somehow, not-piloting reminds her of the photographs before she took a pair of scissors to them, uneven and disturbing. Piloting takes that all away, trims her down to the bare essences. She likes that better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> SYDNEY: Is it true that you although you attended the Jaeger Academy, you dropped out before the final exams and therefore were not fully trained as a pilot?
> 
> REYES: Okay, that's not exactly -
> 
> SYDNEY: A simple yes or no will do, Miss Reyes.
> 
> REYES: No, you know what, a simple yes or no isn't enough in this case! The apocalypse doesn't follow your textbook rules. _Fine_ , I didn't write the exams or jump through flaming hoops for you guys, but that doesn't mean I wasn't capable of piloting. I knew every single one of the Jaegers in this Shatterdome like the back of my hand. Can you say the same? Can any of your snobby Councilmembers say the same?
> 
> KANE: Raven.
> 
> SYDNEY: The medical reports indicate that you were piloting when you suffered your... unfortunate injury. So I think it's within reason to say that you were not, in fact, as capable as you think.
> 
> REYES: Now that is [CENSORED].
> 
> SYDNEY: Please stop giving work for the editors to do, Miss Reyes, they have better things to do than censor each and every one of your answers.
> 
> REYES: [LONG CENSORED PAUSE].
> 
> SYDNEY: Let's talk about the circumstances that led you to climb into a Jaeger. As we were saying, you were not trained as a pilot, and instead after dropping out of the program, you worked maintenance on J-Tech?
> 
> REYES: I was [CENSORED] good at it, too.
> 
> SYDNEY: So how did you become involved with Miss Clarke Griffin?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems to Clarke like the entirety of the Ark Shatterdome has somehow squeezed into the Kwoon, to the point that there are people spilling out into the hall, linking arms, laughing, placing bets. The merriment quiets down significantly as she and Wells walk down the hall, and Clarke chooses to stare at the simple gray tshirt stretched over Well's back instead of meeting any of their eyes. Despite how easily the crowd parts to let them through, Clarke feels their curious gazes burning into her back. She wonders if its just her nervousness, or if they really are staring at her more than Wells.  
  
It might be true. No one ever seems able to let her forget that she is Jake Griffin's daughter. The media plastered photos of the two of them when he finally died, and Clarke hated them for it.

Inside the Kwoon, the square marked out for their combat is left perfectly empty. The hopeful candidates are lined up on one side, and Clarke recognizes them all from the files she skimmed but doesn't feel that _click_ with anyone, that click that's supposed to feel right. (She felt it with Wells.) On the opposite side, the Ark's operating pilots are seated, and Clarke recognizes the Miller family from newsreels, strong and silent as always; Octavia who sat with them at dinner and chattered away about everything and nothing, leaning back quite comfortably into the broad chest of a man who looks vaguely uneasy with all the chaos around him; and then the three pilots of Commander Woods - Anya, Lexa, and Costia - all looking suitably sharp and refined.

Clarke observes this all in the span of a few seconds, letting nothing register on her face, and then she walks past them to the weapons rack and hefts several sticks in her hands before finding one whose weight she likes.

"A demonstration, first. Indra, Octavia, if you please."  
  
Clarke knows from their conversation at dinner that Octavia is one of the pilots of _Mariposa Blue_ , and rather expects the man whose lap she was sitting in to be her co-pilot, but a lithe older woman emerges from the crowd instead and bows her head to Octavia. Octavia grins and punches the woman's shoulder in response, and Clarke watches as they dance around each other in the combat square. As with every drift compatible pair, there's something beautiful and entrancing about their fight, something you can't drag your eyes away from. She's a little sorry when the match ends at _4-3_ for Indra.  
  
"You can go first," Wells says, nudging her shoulder, and a vicious flash of annoyance surges up in Clarke.

"I don't want to," she hisses, more to be contrary than anything. She knows it's petty and doesn't really care. (She should care.) Afterwards, she will wonder what would have happened if she'd just been mature and taken Wells' offer. If she'd gone first. Would everything have gone better, or worse? Would Raven still walk on two working legs? Clarke will always wonder, and she will never know the answer.

But she doesn't know any of that at the time. So she leans against the wall and watches Wells slip off his boots and stride into the combat square first. He laughs at something Kane leans over to say and then goes through the exact same stretching routine he's been using as long as she's known him, and Clarke has to actively stop herself from following along. She closes her eyes but it doesn't drown out the count in her head going _8, 9, 10, and now the other side, 1, 2, 3..._

When she opens her eyes again, the first candidate has taken her place.

The fight begins and it's obvious Wells is holding back. The match ends at _4-2_ and at Kane's side, Bellamy Blake scribbles something onto a clipboard and looks personally offended. Wells breezes through the first half of the candidates and none of them stick: _4-1, 4-2, 4-0._ It's not necessary to beat your partner, Clarke knows, but a balanced score is always indicative of a balanced partnership. The fifth candidate is a hulking man named Tristan who knocks Wells down immediately and doesn't stop until they end in a _1-4_. Wells shakes Tristan's hand when he gets up and Clarke purses her lips unhappily. Several more matches pass in the same manner.

Finally, Kane calls them to a halt, and whispers something to Bellamy. To Clarke's utter shock - and to the shock of most of the observers, if the astonished hush that falls over the crowd is any indication - Bellamy promptly hands over the clipboard and strips down to bare feet and a muscle tank that she is definitely not appreciating.

Clarke's mouth grows dry as the match begins and Bellamy leaps forward, and in the space of a minute it becomes terribly, achingly clear that he and Wells are drift compatible.

It obviously wasn't an expected outcome, of course, Clarke can hear a pair of boys nearby arguing that _Bellamy wasn't even in the initial pool of candidates, surely that renders all the bets obsolete?_ Beyond that, at first glance there is nothing linking the two of them together.

But there is respect, and they hold their own against each other, and Clarke's heart falls as Kane steps up and announces that they'll be doing sync tests together tomorrow. Wells smiles, looking both relieved and vaguely proud of himself, while Bellamy glances to the side and seems to hold a long, silent conversation with Octavia, who looks completely beside herself with joy.

"Clarke?"  
  
She looks up sharply to see that Kane's calling her, and by the exasperated look on his face, he's already done so once or twice already. Clarke has to force herself to move forward, though her stomach churns with every step she takes closer to Wells and Bellamy, who are conversing quietly in the shadows, paying her no attention.

"Look," Kane says in a low voice when she reaches him. "I can see by your face that you're against this. If you speak up now, you and Wells could still - "  
  
"No," Clarke says sharply. She takes a deep breath, and then, more calmly. "No, Wells and I won't be drifting together. Bellamy is a good match for him. They'll do well."  
  
"Not as well as you and Wells could have," Kane reminds her.  
  
"That's all in the past, Kane," Clarke murmurs, and finally, he steps back and lets her pace around the combat square, spinning the stick around in her hand expertly. The commotion that rose up after Wells and Bellamy were declared finally dies down as the first of the candidates steps up again. On the side, Octavia mouths 'good luck' and gives Clarke a thumbs up.  
  
Clarke smiles weakly back, but she thinks some part of her already knows the outcome of the matches long before they're over. She and Wells were like peas in a pod, her mother used to say. If he wasn't compatible with any of them, she won't be either.

_4-1, 4-0, 4-2, 4-0, 1-4, 4-2_

At the end, Clarke ignores all the whispering around her and Kane's heavy, resigned stare, and she resolutely does not allow her tears to start falling as she places her stick back on the weapons rack and walks out of the Kwoon with her head held high and the space at her side conspicuously empty. Clarke doesn't notice a willowy figure in grease-stained coveralls slip out just before her and vanish around the corner. How could she when she's blinking back tears?

"Clarke, Clarke wait!"  
  
She spins on her heel as Wells calls after her, ready to spit more vitriol, but as soon as she catches sight of his familiar face her throat closes up and suddenly she can't do it anymore.

"Congratulations," Clarke says instead, her eyes flickering first to him, and then to Bellamy, who's followed a few paces behind. "I'm sure the sync tests will go great."  
  
And then she flees down the hall to her apartment before she can do something stupid, like forgive her childhood best friend for trying to look out for her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 1:37 PM June 21 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_From:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ re: re: seriously?

Wells found a match with my right hand man, Bellamy Blake. Sync tests are set for tomorrow, but I'll already predicting they'll be less than what he had with Clarke. They're both clearly capable pilots, but the drift will be ordinary at best.

  
Clarke, on the other hand... No one came even close. This is an utter waste of her talent. Are you sure there's no way to convince Clarke and Wells to make up?

  
Marcus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> SYDNEY: Did you know, at that point, about the relationship between Miss Clarke Griffin and Mr Wells Jaha?
> 
> REYES: Not the first time we met, no. But I figured it out pretty quickly after our first sync test. There are no secrets in the drift.
> 
> SYDNEY: None?
> 
> REYES: None.
> 
> SYDNEY: And what happened after that?
> 
> REYES: We drifted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That night, after the revelries have finally died down, Clarke goes for a walk. There's something about the cool air circulating through the Shatterdome that seems to brush away the worst of her pain and misery, after several hours spent crying alone in her tiny apartment. She wanders first into the Jaeger hangar, finds her way onto the maintenance catwalks and pauses in front of every Jaeger, looking into the eyes of the Conn-Pods like she can find some kind of redemption there.

She doesn't, but she's finally stopped hiccuping with every breath, so she'll consider that a success.

Somehow, Clarke's wanderings bring her to the Kwoon. At first she pauses in the hall, contemplating the rush of disappointment that fills her at the sight of the combat room gone dark and empty, and then she realizes it's not empty. It's dark, yes, but there's a figure practicing on her own inside the constraints of the combat square, exhaling roughly with every strike to an invisible opponent.

Clarke watches, and her heart sings.

She slips inside, picks up a lighter stick than she fought with last time - this opponent leans on agility rather than strength, so Clarke will have to be quick to keep up - and when the moment is right, she darts into the battle. The figure is taken aback only for a moment before she pushes back with a ferocity equal to Clarke's. Their sticks click together lightning-quick, the song broken only by pained grunts and ragged breathing. Then Clarke sees an opening and leaps for it, ducking past the mystery girl's defenses and stopping the stick a centimeter from her ribcage.  
  
"1-0," Clarke says, her voice coming out low and breathy. The girl grunts and throws herself into parrying, and before Clarke knows it there's a stick pressed up against her throat, her own knocked out of her hands.  
  
"1-1," the girl taunts, her bared teeth bright white even in the dim light, and Clarke ducks under her stick and dives for her own. She reaches it and swings it up to block the downward strikes just in time, then rolls to come back to her feet and the fight begins again.  
  
Except that it's not a fight, it's - what did her instructors always call it? - a _dialogue._

Let it never be said that Clarke is not an excellent conversation partner.

"4-3," she says, pointing her stick at the other girl's heart, and for a moment they regard each other like caged predators, panting and wary, and then the other girl straightens and gives her a wry smile.

"Raven Reyes," she says, sauntering off to the side to pick up a water bottle and drink enthusiastically from it. "Water?"  
  
"Yes please," Clarke says, smoothly catching the bottle Raven tosses at her. "I'm Clarke - "  
  
"I know," Raven says. "I watched you, earlier."  
  
Clarke takes a long swig of cold water to avoid answering, then screws the cap back on with the same care one might afford to disarming a bomb.

"Then you'll know that I'm a pilot desperately in need of a partner, and none of those dimwits today came even close," Clarke says, watching Raven closely. The Kwoon is too dim to see details, but something tells her Raven is gorgeous; long hair and almond eyes and an enticing swing in her hips when she walks like she owns the place.  
  
"Yeah, well," Raven says, looking away. "I'm not a pilot. I'm on J-Tech, I only really come here to work out."  
  
"Bullshit," Clarke says firmly.  
  
"No seriously - "  
  
"No one moves like that without training."  
  
Raven exhales as she stares at the shadowy corners of the Kwoon.

"Fine, I went through training, but I dropped out before the final exams."  
  
"Well," Clarke responds. "I aced them, so I'm sure I can get you back up to speed soon."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>   
>  SYDNEY: What does it say about the standards of your Shatterdome, Mr Kane, that you would so readily agree to allow an unlicensed pilot into combat on the whims of a twenty-one year old girl?
> 
> KANE: It wasn't a decision I came to lightly, Diana.
> 
> SYDNEY: But you did, after all. Miss Reyes' subsequent injury, Miss Griffin's trauma, all of that is on your shoulders. You should have pushed Miss Griffin and Mr Jaha to overcome their teenage drama and drift together.
> 
> REYES: [CENSORED] you, you have no idea what it was like. We haven't been teenagers for a long time. We grew up because you forced us to. _One,_ that makes our troubles a lot more significant than 'teenage drama' and _two,_ it makes us capable of making our own decisions. Clarke and I pushed Kane into approving us. You don't get to lay all the blame on him for that. What happened to me, that was my fault too and I accept it.
> 
> SYDNEY: That's where you're wrong, Miss Reyes. I _do_ get to lay all the blame on him for that. As your commanding officer, Mr Kane should have known better.
> 
> KANE: I did the best I could with what I had. And I had very little, considering that at the time the Council decided the PPDC's efforts would be better spent on building a giant space station and quarantining a select population inside of it.
> 
> REYES: Wait, you're kidding?
> 
> SYDNEY: That was classified information, Mr Kane.
> 
> KANE: My bad.
> 
> REYES: Holy [CENSORED].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't take as long as Clarke thought it would to convince Kane. He's softer than she remembers from her childhood - no, softer isn't the right word. He's still distant and strict and commanding, but where he used to be rigid and cold he's become more understanding. She doesn't think it's pity. They say you adopt a little of your co-pilot's personality, after you drift together for years. Sometimes Clarke thinks it's true, and sees her father in the way Kane picks up his coffee mug in the mornings, in the way he reassures young interns who accidentally brought him the wrong files, in the way he frowns when he thinks no one is watching. It makes her heart ache, but it would be just like Jake Griffin to leave remnants of himself in Kane, to give Clarke the gift he never could. 

Raven is skittish in the daylight, always twitching when they walk into the mess hall and people won't stop staring at the J-Tech girl who somehow got herself listed on the sync test waiting list overnight. While Clarke chews on a piece of toast and considers the sketchy-looking scrambled eggs on her plate, Raven takes a Jaeger hand controller entirely apart and puts it back together, leaving a worrying amount of screws and tiny metal pieces behind. 

"Is that a good idea?" Clarke asks mildly. 

"I know exactly what I'm doing!" Raven snaps. Then, seeing Clarke's face, she adds. "Sorry. I'm - "

"I know," Clarke says quietly. 

"I'm fitting it to my size," Raven explains, poking her fingers through the controls and turning the gauntlet this way and that to show her. "I've always found the standard set to be too big for my fingers."

"You've practiced with the standard set?"

Raven doesn't answer for a long time. 

"You're not the first person I've done a sync test with, Clarke."

Well. There's not much she can say to that. They linger in the mess hall as long as they can, Clarke coaxing Raven to eat at least half of her rations. She looks around for Octavia at one point, thinking the lively pilot she met the evening before will surely brighten up their wait time, before remembering that Octavia is Bellamy's sister. Of course she'd want to be present for her brother's sync test. Clarke's trying really hard not to think about that. But no matter how long the wait drags, eventually the time for their own appointment comes around. Clarke extends a hand wordlessly, and Raven's palm slips against hers as they leave the mess hall and march to the testing chambers like they're walking to their deaths. 

They arrive apparently just as Bellamy and Wells have finished, and both men stand close to each other as technicians help them remove the drivesuits, looking vaguely nauseous. The first drift is always the worst. Wells looks straight at Clarke over the heads of busy workers bustling about the room, and she feels like she's just been punched in the gut. Only Raven's sudden snickering pulls her out of it. 

"What?" Clarke asks, a little distracted. 

"Look at them," Raven says, and it's exactly what Clarke is trying not to do, but she looks nonetheless, trying to see what's amusing Raven. Like most partners who aren't _a)_ sexually involved _b)_  comfortable familial relations or _c)_ childhood best friends, they're standing as close to each other as possible without actually touching. Clarke knew a pair back at her old Shatterdome who overcame that discomfort by going and beating the shit out of each other after they drifted, until the hangover passed and so did the insatiable need for contact.

"Full disclosure," Clarke says, turning back to Raven. "I'm bi. Probably should have mentioned that earlier-"

"Not a problem," Raven says with a shrug. "Me too."

Clarke feels a pleasant warmth fill her at that news, though of course she would have discovered in the drift, anyway. Then there's no more time for chatter, as the technicians descend on them with their drivesuits. Clarke hates the spinal clamps the worst, shivering as cold metal lines up against her back, but the old familiarity of the procedure reassures her. It's only when she looks over and sees Raven staring back that she remembers this won't be like old times. 

She focuses on breathing in and out as they enter the Conn-Pod and step into the motion rigs that will control the Jaeger. The visor of her helmet fogs up, then clears as the ventilator starts. Kane's having them test the Jaeger that arrived in Ark with her and Wells, the same one he and Bellamy just performed their sync test in. She tries not to let that bother her, but then she instinctively takes the left side, the one she's always taken, and it looks like old habits really do die hard. 

"Ready for the Drop?" Kane's voice rings in their headpieces. 

"Ready," Raven says, and Clarke echoes it a moment later. Her stomach lurches as the Conn-Pod falls along its tracks and settles between her Jaeger's monstrous shoulders.

"Initiating in ten, nine, eight..." Kane begins, and Clarke counts along. 

"Clarke?" Raven asks urgently, somewhere around the five mark. 

"Yeah?"

"Don't pity me," Raven insists, and Clarke doesn't have time to ask because on _one_ , her mind explodes. 

**-** She is thirteen years old, curled up on an inflatable mattress doled out by the Coast Guard, and Well's knees knock against hers. They're supposed to be asleep but his eyes are wide open. 

"You'll come with me, won't you?" she asks, but it's not her voice **-**

**-** it's the voice of a boy, and then the scene flips and she is lying where Wells was lying, staring at the face of the boy who spoke, the boy she knows to be Finn. 

"Of course," she responds, easily, because she'd follow Finn anywhere, and if he wants to pilot a Jaeger, then that is what they will do. A door slams downstairs, and she flinches. Finn reaches out, holds her hand tightly as the footsteps thunder up the stairs, and neither of them breathe as they pass their door and finally disappear into the other room **-**

**-** Abby always closes the door and reads the letter by herself when it arrives, and Wells tells her not to hate her mother for it, for missing Jake, but it's hard, so hard, because she wants this too **-**  

**-** "You can join us," Finn says earnestly. "I'll be your family. We'll run away together."

"Not a lot of safe places to go, nowadays," she says with a laugh that doesn't quite come out as genuine. Finn shrugs.

"Doesn't matter, as long as we're together, right?" **-**

**-** "Hurry up," she says, leaning away from the ladder and looking down to find Wells several rungs below her feet. "Come on, we'll miss the sunset."

"No we won't," Wells argues, but he climbs faster anyway, and holds her tightly around the waist to keep her from falling as she adjusts the camera's settings. "You're so **-** "

" **-** Useless," her mother snarls, swaying on her feet. The bottle lies smashed at her feet, alcohol seeping through their socks, but she refuses to look away. She's saving her mother's life by doing this, and even if she's in no condition to thank her now, she might be one day. She might be, she might be **-**

**-** Her academic scores and mental fortitude make up for her dismal physical scores, but she can't keep counting on them. 

"Try again," Wells says, helping her to her feet and handing her a bottle of water. 

"I cannot convey to you in mere words how much I detest cardio," she gasps, and he grins at her **-**

**-** "He's got a nice smile, hasn't he?"

"But I hear he came with the Reyes girl already, they scored pretty high on the sync tests."

"Doesn't mean I can't ogle his ass."

"No but they're... You know. _Together._ "

Until they aren't. She's the best in the class, she's always picked first, she's always good enough, until the one day she isn't and she sees it in his mind, hears another girl moan his name into their ears **-**  

**-** It's funny, the world is ending around her and yet the only sound in the hospital is quiet beeping, beep, beep, beep. Her father is always tired these days, and sometimes she thinks Kane has made some kind of pact not to sleep until his co-pilot does, because they share the same deep, dark circles underneath the eyes, except that Kane's will get better one day and Jake's won't. 

"Don't leave me," she pleads, and he squeezes her hand, once, to let her know he's heard. He doesn't have the strength to speak anymore.

**-**

**-** "Don't do this," Finn says desperately. "Don't make me leave. It doesn't have to happen again."

"Fuck you," she says, throwing his clothes at his face and wishing they were heavier, wishing they'd leave more damage. And when he goes, so do her dreams of piloting. Her instructors tell her she has so much potential, the brightest mind they've had in years, she was supposed to be the youngest Jaeger pilot ever, but instead she shrugs them off and becomes the youngest Jaeger mechanic ever, because she's good at this, too, and at least this way no one has to shove their way into her heart and her head and rip her apart. She welds giant metal hands and imagines them crushing all the dark, whispering things inside of her. - **  
**

**-** "It's just been suggested that you're not ready for combat," Abby says, and she's using her politician voice again, the one that makes it obvious she's not talking to her like she's her daughter, but instead just another pawn on the chessboard. "Wells says -"

"Fuck whatever Wells says," she spits. "I don't care what he has to say, I'll never speak to him again."

"Honey, he's your partner, you have to-"

"No I don't." **-**

**-** She practices in the Kwoon at night where no one can see, because she needs to keep herself as sharp as a honed knife in case he ever comes back, she needs to show him she's strong and vicious and doesn't need him, even though he's a real Jaeger pilot now and she's given up on that dream.

She's given up, until suddenly someone else is fighting her, blonde hair shining in the darkness, wood clanging against wood, blow for blow. They fall into step, and everything is balanced once again **-**  

**-** "Vitals are steady, the drift is stable, 88% sync rate, well done!" Kane's voice rings in their headpieces. ClarkeandRaven turn as one, grins flashing across their faces as the connection stabilizes. "Give me a salute, girls."

They bring their fists up and pound them against each other, listening to the creak of metal obey the whims of flesh. The hangar suddenly feels too small - they want to be outside in open air, striding across land and through oceans, the whole world laid bare before them like the view of the town from the top of the water tower. Memories of Ark's coastline flash in their mind from the part of them that is Raven, who has lived here longer, and the part that is Clarke sends her approval across the connection. 

Instead Kane and his team of technicians guide them through all the basic protocols, limited in their movement as they are, and ClarkeandRaven obey because if they're good enough they'll be added to the roster of active pilots.

"Time to power down," Kane says at the end, and dismay flashes through them, this can't be over already, can it? They've just begun. There's so much to see. "It's all right, I'll let you return soon."

ClarkeandRaven clutch at the pieces of the drift as the countdown echoes in their ears, minds brushing against each other, edges blurred, savouring. _Three, two, one,_ and they slip out of each other and Clarke gasps inside of her helmet, alone. Her ears ring as she immediately glances over to Raven. 

"You good?" Raven asks, craning her neck around. 

"Yeah," Clarke says, her voice shaking every so slightly, and she's glad the motion rig keeps her upright because her knees are shaking as the Conn-Pod detaches from the Jaeger and climbs back towards the Drivesuit room. The technicians undress them in a blur - Clarke is aware only of Raven, right beside her and still not close enough, because they were one person just a few short minutes ago and how can they be expected to part now? They stumble down the hallway once they're declared stable, Raven's arm around Clarke's shoulders, or maybe Clarke's arm around Raven's shoulders, it's hard to tell. They pause at a juncture before the dormitories and Raven raises her eyebrows. Clarke shrugs, and so they head down the hall and stumble into Raven's apartment. 

There's so much stuff to look at, so many hints of Raven that Clarke wants to look at, but there will be time for that later. Instead, they stumble to Raven's bed and let gravity pull them down into a tangle of limbs. Clarke rests her head on Raven's stomach and breathes out, shakily, and they wait for the shaking to subside.

"Holy fuck," Raven says at last, and Clarke laughs, because so far their conversation is oddly reminiscent of the words she'd have with the people she hooked up with. The drift is kind of like that, she thinks, only ten times more intimate. After a few hours when they can bear to walk more than a few feet apart from each other, a knock on the door comes, and Clarke only whimpers as Raven stumbles out of bed and opens the door. It's Octavia, and she's brought food. 

"The grapevine says it went off without a hitch," she says, grinning when she sees Clarke's eyes zero in on the trays. "Eat up. We're technically not supposed to take trays out of the mess hall, but, you know. Pilot privileges."

"Pilot privileges," Raven agrees, biting into an apple. Clarke reaches for a sandwich to get rid of the fruity taste in her own mouth. Raven looks at her as they're chewing, lights dancing in her eyes. "We're pilots now."

"Awesome," Clarke says, and pats Octavia's head as a thank you for the food.

"You guys need a name," Octavia says. "It's tradition to rename Jaegers when they get new pilots."

"Princess Mechanic," Raven says without a hint of hesitation, and Clarke chokes on her sandwich.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It starts with a party. 

Apparently, having two pairs of Jaeger pilots approved in one day is Kind Of A Big Deal. It might not have been a few years ago, when the Jaeger Program was in its prime and Kaijus were falling left and right, but these days they take two steps back for every step forward, and there are more Jaegers lying dormant at the bottom of the ocean than there are patrolling the coast and keeping the last of humanity safe. So the day after Clarke and Raven drift for the first time, they both get a text (Octavia's added herself into pretty much every phone in the Shatterdome. You want to contact someone, she's your girl.) calling them to a rarely-used floor deep underneath the Shatterdome proper. 

Wells and Bellamy step into the elevator halfway down, and after the four of them ascertain that no one knows why they're being called down, the elevator falls into awkward silence. Clarke, of course, is still angry with Wells, Raven was in Clarke's head 24 hours ago and doesn't hesitate to adopt the lingering emotions, Wells doesn't want to cause a scene in public, and Bellamy - well, Bellamy keeps shuffling his feet and glaring at Clarke and opening his mouth as though to say something, only to fall silent when Wells shoots him a look. It's all very odd and confusing and Clarke couldn't be bothered less to pay attention. 

However, her bad mood disappears as soon as the doors to the elevator open and the four of them are promptly showered with confetti. 

"Surprise!" Octavia cheers, grinning at them all as she reaches into the elevator and physically pulls them out two at a time. "I hope you guys don't expect to have desert at the mess hall for a loooong time, because we spent all our sugar rations on a cake."

"A cake?" Clarke echoes, feeling stunned as she looks around a chamber covered in tacky decorations. 

"Hope it's cheesecake," Raven comments, and then they're separated by the sheer amount of people coming to wish them congratulations. Some faces are vaguely familiar, as though she met them a long time ago, though she knows they're simply memories she's picked up from Raven's mind. Still, two young men in labcoats beam at her in unison when she calls them Monty and Jasper before they've introduced themselves, and when Clarke awkwardly tries to explain she knows them through Raven (literally) they laugh off her mumbled explanation and immediately shove a plate of cake into her hands. (It's chocolate, not cheesecake.)

Over the next few hours she gets to know everyone who cared enough to attend the party. All the other pilots are there, of course - Octavia and the stoic Indra, Monty's boyfriend Miller and his father, Anya and Lexa and Costia who claim a loveseat not quite big enough for all three of them and curl up there the entire night, watching the celebrations with cat-like attentiveness. But the invite list isn't limited only to pilots - Raven wanders off to joke with several J-Tech colleagues, Monty and Jasper are here on behalf of K-Science ("We get to cut up aliens, it's the best job ever!" "No, only you cut up aliens, I study their behaviour.") and a few, like Lincoln, are the Jumphawk pilots that escort Jaegers to their drop-off point. Clarke's not sure she could have remembered everyone's names had Raven's ghost memories not helped her out. 

Someone breaks out the alcohol just before midnight, and sometime after that Clarke finds herself seated in a circle with everyone who's left, Raven's head in her lap, Octavia leaning against her shoulder. 

"Lexa and Costia use the drift to flirt," Anya says, voice dry like a desert but an unexpectedly fond smile on her face. "It's nauseating."

Lexa merely smirks at this, looking over everyone coolly as though daring them to make fun of her for it, while Costia, infinitely sweeter, blushes and nudges Anya's shoulder playfully.

"Oh, you think that's bad? There is nothing," Miller announces dramatically, his grand hand gestures aided by copious amounts of alcohol, " _Nothing_ , I tell you, worse than accidentally chasing a sex R.A.B.I.T when you're drifting with your father. At least he already knew I was gay, though, or that could have gotten interesting."

The gathering groans appreciatively while Monty hides his face in his hands. Somehow, the discussion changes to a debate of the most embarrassing drift memories, and Clarke leans back against Octavia and dozes through the warm flush that booze leaves her in, a gentle smile on her face. It's strange how her life can suddenly look up in just a day or two. Even Well's presence is oddly bearable. 

So naturally, when the party finally breaks up in the wee hours of the morning and Clarke stumbles through the halls trying to remember how to find her apartment, Bellamy finds her. 

"You should forgive Wells," he says, without any greeting or buildup whatsoever. Clarke sways slightly on her feet and fixes him with her most serious look. 

"Nah," she says after thinking carefully for a moment. 

"You should," Bellamy says, looking pained. "Look, if you'd seen what I'd seen in his head - "

"I'm not going to," Clarke interrupts, lurching forward and poking his chest with one determined finger. It's a very nice chest, but she resolves not to think about that until later. "You're going to pilot with him and you're going to be very happy and far away from me, together, and I'm going to pilot with Raven, and everyone's going to be very happy and nobody is going to talk about me and Wells ever again. The end."

"It's not that simple."

"It never is," Clarke says sagely. "Do you know where my room is?"

He does, because he's Kane's right hand man and micromanages the entire fucking Shatterdome, and that pisses Clarke off for some reason, so after he walks her home she shuts the door in his face and doesn't say good night. Whatever. He never apologized for being a dick when they met, and Clarke's not gonna be the first to be nice just because Raven fucked him once and remembers the event fondly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> SYDNEY: Correct me if I'm wrong: your first field mission was August the 1st, 2024, against the Category 3 Feisripa?
> 
> REYES: Unfortunately you've done your research. Why do you want to know about him, anyway? He wasn't that exciting of a fight.
> 
> SYDNEY: Considering your unlicensed state, I've marked it on my timeline as the first point where Mr Kane began to blatantly disregard our organization's rules.
> 
> REYES: You probably kick puppies in your spare time, don't you?
> 
> SYDNEY: That's quite enough, Miss Reyes. You were deployed simultaneously along with Mr Blake and Mr Jaha, yes?
> 
> REYES: It was a joint first mission. Kane probably figured there was less chance of damage -
> 
> SYDNEY: It's not your job to tell me what you think was going through Mr Kane's mind at the time, Miss Reyes. That's my job. All I want for now is your version of the story.
> 
> REYES: So you can twist it into your own words? You think I'm stupid just because I worked as a mechanic. Let me tell you, some of my J-Tech buddies were [CENSORED] geniuses, and I'm one too. I see exactly what you're trying to do.
> 
> SYDNEY: Can we get back to the point?
> 
> REYES: Can I leave?
> 
> SYDNEY: If you fail to complete this interview I'll be forced to detain you. Don't make this more unpleasant than this has to be.
> 
> REYES: I can't believe this is for real. You're a complete [CENSORED].
> 
> SYDNEY: Tell me about Feisripa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke's peace only lasts about a week and a half. She spends the first of August out in the city with Octavia and Raven, who delight in showing her all the sights to see, including the skeletons of long-dead Kaijus in the Bone Slums. Clarke remembers that before training took over her life, she used to draw, and spends a while trying to memorize the gentle sweep of a giant rib cage so at odds with the viciousness of the creature it was once part of. The twelve year anniversary of the first Kaiju landing is coming up, and Clarke is amazed to think that the children playing in the shadows of the skeleton have never known anything else. Even her own memories of the world pre-Kaiju feel dim and distant.

"That must have been one big, ugly fucker," Raven observes, appearing at her side and striking a mocking thoughtful pose.

"Yeah, yeah," Clarke says, nudging her off balance with her shoulder.

They follow Octavia when she wanders off, telling them they've got to try this noodle place Monty found back a few weeks ago. They slide into one booth, away from the windows even though they're between mealtimes and the little diner is all but empty. They've all got sunglasses, and Clarke's draped one of Octavia's flowery scarves over her distinctive blonde hair, but paparazzi are always dying for shots of Jaeger pilots out and about.

_HUMANITY'S SAVIOURS: JUST LIKE US_ , the tabloids often read.

Photos of Octavia pay especially high. Clarke and Raven, having fought only virtual Kaiju to date, are still relatively unknown by the media. But Octavia is blessed with ass-kicking skills, good looks, a quick wit in interviews, and a tendency to fight slut-shamers on the internet. So naturally, she has a large online following.

However they're left undisturbed that day, by some miracle, and Clarke should have known it was too good to be true. In the evening the sirens blare just as they return to the Shatterdome. They all take one look at each other and sprint for the Drivesuit room.

"Oh good, you're here," Kane says as they burst in. "Clarke, Raven, suit up. I'm sending you out with Wells and Bellamy just in case the first ride gets bumpy. Octavia, you're to remain on standby with Indra."

"Sir yes sir," Octavia says cheerfully, and kisses Clarke and Raven both on the cheek just before the technicians descend with the drivesuits.

Clarke feels Raven's excitement mirroring her own before the drift even begins. The motion rigs are just close together enough that if they stretch out their arms they can join hands, and Clarke closes her eyes and focuses only on the weight of Raven's palm in hers as Kane counts them down and the Conn-Pod drops around them.

"...Three, two, o-" Kane says. 

**-** The smell of her mother's perfume, from an era long gone **-**  

**-** Sun on the back of her neck as she and Finn dig in his front garden planting tomatoes and green beans and raspberries that grow to be so ripe they fall apart between her fingers when she picks them **-**  

**-** Her first match against Wells, both of them fighting tooth and nail to prove to the instructors that they deserve their place here. There's a stitch in her side and her bare feet keep slipping on the mats underneath but she pays no attention to that **-**  

**-** The air tastes salty by the ocean. She opens her arms to Ark's coastline and breathes in. She can make a home here, yes **-**  

**-** ClarkeandRaven raise their fists and pound them together, exaltation ringing in every facet of their metal body. They know it down to the individual rivet, having spent many hours painstakingly putting it together. 

"How does it feel, girls?" Kane asks. ClarkeandRaven almost laugh, because they are not girls, they are girl, and more than that, they are _Jaeger_ , but of course, that's not an easy concept to grasp for people on the outside. 

"Good," they say as one, rolling their shoulders back as the Jumphawk helicopters descend to carry them into the bay. 

"Not that it matters a lot to me," Kane says wryly. "But the media will be clamoring to know your name after this. Have you picked one out?"

"Princess Mechanic," they respond, and delight thrums between them at Kane's answering laugh. 

"Very well. You're up against a Category 3, though it's not far from a 4. We're calling it Feisripa, don't laugh, I don't come up with these things. Estimated time of arrival is fourteen minutes. You'll be in the bay in six. Follow so far?"

"Yes," they answer, a little distracted by the view of the Ark that opens up as they're lifted out of the Shatterdome. Their head swivels, and at their side they see the second Jaeger, WellsandBellamy. They're calling themselves _Rebel Phoenix_. Wells never could forget their birthplace, could he?

_Don't worry about that now._

ClarkeandRaven brace their knees as the helicopters drop them into the bay and waves lap against their knees. They straighten, bid the Jumphawks farewell, and take their first step forward. The water drags more than they thought it would, and the motion rigs resist their force until they gain momentum. A spike of worry travels along their connection, before it is immediately soothed. They've been doing simulations almost non-stop since Kane approved them for combat. They'll be fine. And if not, _Rebel Phoenix_ is right behind them. 

By the time Feisripa's approach pings on the proximity sensors, they've already got the hang of it. Kane tells them to brace themselves, and ClarkeandRaven push their right foot back and settle into a defensive crouch, fists raised and ready.

_We're going to punch a fucking Kaiju in the mouth._

_Damn right we are._

Out of the corner of their visor they can see _Rebel_ take up a similar stance and they take a moment to reign in barely-contained excitement before Feisripa appears in front of them. It's nothing like the simulations. ClarkeandRaven forget every lecture, every carefully pointed bit of advice, in favour of lashing out on instinct. No amount of academics can prepare for a real drift. Their training keeps them standing as Feisripa slams its body weight against their front, but rage is what keeps them pushing forward, landing blows in the weak spots behind where Feisripa's flailing limbs connect to its body. _Rebel_  circles around behind them, pinning Feisripa in a pincer tactic, and when the canons on its shoulders start glowing with heat, ClarkeandRaven understand the strategy instantly. 

They put Feisripa in the closest thing to a headlock that one can accomplish with an alien and a giant robot, holding it tightly in place, and a moment later, _Rebel's_  energy cannons find their targets in its underbelly. 

After that it's pretty easy to put down. 

_We didn't get to punch it in the mouth._

_Next time, I promise._

ClarkeandRaven bound towards _Rebel_ , exhausted by the effort it takes to maneuver the motion rigs but giddy on adrenaline and the excitement of a job done well, and raise their hand up for a high five. Only a moment later, _Rebel_  meets them in the middle. It's a moment captured in a grainy photograph that's under the headline of every newspaper the next day.

In the Drivesuit room they stagger out of their respective Conn-Pods, still reeling from the switch from two minds to one, and Clarke doesn't have time to react to the sight of Wells' face shining with relief before Bellamy lurches forward and gathers her up into his arms, squeezing tightly and letting out an ear-splitting _whoop_. She freezes in his arms, because it may be Bellamy's body hugging her but something tells her it's Wells' mind, that like she and Raven, they haven't quite managed to separate themselves post-drift yet, but a moment later he releases her and stumbles to embrace Raven. Clarke lets out a shaky exhale and resolutely does not look at Wells. 

She and Raven hold hands throughout their quick health examination, and then the celebrations sweep them up and carry them to the mess hall, where everyone seems to be clamoring for the story of how the first drift went. Bellamy and Wells open their mouths and speak in unison for a few sentences before giving up on being coherent until the hangover starts to fade. Octavia, at their side, shakes her head goodnaturedly, and then comes to hug Clarke and Raven too. Clarke smells strawberry shampoo as Raven buries her face in Octavia's hair. 

Luckily they only have to deal with the messy trial of human interaction for a few more minutes before Kane arrives and breaks up the party, sending the newly-blooded pilots to recover in private. 

Clarke and Raven stumble into Raven's apartment again, kicking the door closed behind them, and they curl up on her bed, Clarke's nose pressed against Raven's collarbone, until they finally stop shaking. 

"I'm glad it's you," Clarke mutters a long while after. Raven's fingers pause midway through untangling a chunk of her hair. 

"I'm glad it's you, too," Raven says, and her fingers resume. Clarke closes her eyes and dreams of digging in the garden with a shaggy-haired boy that is not her own. When she wakes up, the apartment is dim, and the water is running in the bathroom. A moment later Raven returns, and even in the darkness Clarke can see that she's rubbing at her eyes. It's no use pretending she doesn't know Raven was crying. 

"It's okay," Clarke says when Raven climbs back under the blankets. "I miss them too."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> SYDNEY: Would you say your and Miss Griffin's post-drift habits were unusual? Unhealthily co-dependent, perhaps?
> 
> REYES: They were textbook examples. The strongest drifts are always hard to pull out of. 
> 
> SYDNEY: Be that as it may, Miss Reyes, wouldn't you agree that during the mission that resulted in your paralysis, Miss Griffin could have done better to - 
> 
> REYES: Finish that sentence, I dare you. 
> 
> SYDNEY: Please refrain from waving your fists at me, Miss Reyes.
> 
> REYES: Let's get one thing straight. Anything your partner feels in the drift - and I mean _anything_ , including physical pain - you feel too. And then because you're feeling it, they feel it even more, and it turns into a feedback loop that's almost impossible to break. The fact that Clarke managed to block out the pain long enough to keep us both alive is nothing short of a _miracle_. Don't you dare start criticizing her or our drift. 
> 
> SYDNEY: I'm merely trying to find an explanation for her erratic behaviour on the night of January 12th. Your last mission together seems to be the event that launched the beginning of her PTSD symptoms.
> 
> REYES: Can't you just leave it at 'she saved the world, the end'?
> 
> SYDNEY: Please stop behaving like a child, Miss Reyes, you're far too old to pull this petulant act on me. 
> 
> REYES: Oh my god - 
> 
> _*door slam*_
> 
> SYDNEY: Excuse me, there is an interview in progress!
> 
> UNKNOWN VOICE: S-sorry ma'am, I've been ordered to inform Ranger Raven that Ranger Octavia's awake and asking for her.
> 
> REYES: She's okay?
> 
> UNKNOWN VOICE: Given the circumstances, yes.
> 
> SYDNEY: Close the door, now! Reyes, get back behind the table, you can leave when we're done.
> 
> REYES: We _are_ done. 
> 
> SYDNEY: There will be consequences if you walk - erm, roll out that door. 
> 
> REYES: Suck my [CENSORED]. One of my best friends nearly died and I'm going to go see her and no one can stop me. 
> 
> _*click*_
> 
> Recording over. Press 1 to playback, press 2 to skip to next track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should definitely be working on the next chapter of the mermaids au, but this happened instead. Hope no one minds too much. I know there are a few other Pac Rim aus in the fandom, so I hope the mixed media is enough of a different spin. If you liked this and want more, Icarus Lives by carolneves is a lovely read.
> 
> For further clarification, the Jaeger teams so far:  
> Princess Mechanic: Clarke and Raven (I'm not even sorry about the name.)  
> Rebel Phoenix: Bellamy and Wells (How many of you saw that coming?)  
> Mariposa Blue: Indra and Octavia (Damn right.)  
> Eagle Defiant: Miller and his father. (I am sorry about this name, couldn't come up with anything better.)  
> Commander Woods: Lexa, Anya and Costia (three way drifts are in fact possible, if you haven't seen the movie and were hella confused about that.)  
> Kane and Jake also piloted together a long time ago, but I haven't named their Jaeger. Probably Manly Justice, or something.
> 
> Feisripa was named after the Trigedasleng word for tiger, because I think I'm clever.
> 
> Creds for the very helpful websites I used, along with copious amounts of photo-editing software:  
> [Fake tweets thingy](http://www.lemmetweetthatforyou.com/)  
> [Fake newspaper](http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp)  
> [Fake texts thingy](http://iphonefaketext.com/)  
> [Aaaaaand, fake notes thingy.](http://www.writingfont.com/send-handwritten-letters-online/)
> 
> If you're still REALLY confused about what's going on even though you've gone back and checked all the little dates, hit me up in the comments and I'll explain as much as I can.
> 
> Find me on tumblr as [kindclaws.](http://kindclaws.tumblr.com/) I just started it, I'm lonely.


	2. vidi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS: character death, alcohol as a coping mechanism, some dark thoughts, serious injuries. There's some weird reality/identity distortion stuff? 
> 
> Sorry it's been so long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Spacewalker Mecha_ goes down on a brilliant Tuesday evening. There's a fog lifting off the water that casts the twinkling city lights on the mainland in a hazy glow, and Clarke is in love with the way it makes her chest feel tight. She's on the roof of the Ark Shatterdome, a makeshift easel hurriedly set up in front of her. She 'borrowed' a head lamp from J-Tech since her other alternative was a chain of extension cords leading up onto the roof, but it's not quite bright enough for her purposes, and she keeps having to tilt her palette this way and that, squinting to make out the colours she needs. 

Her painting will probably look all wrong in the daylight, but that's all right. Clarke isn't trying to capture the colours - although there's something striking in the contrast between tiny yellow-orange windows and the dark, cold blues of the ocean. She's just trying to paint the fog. It's something in the way it makes her feel.

The ocean is calm that evening.

You'd never guess that somewhere across the globe, a violent Kaiju battle ends with a drift suddenly cut short by the alien's death thrashes. The newsreels later will report damages from the small tsunami its body created when it fell into the water, but nothing of that shockwave makes it to the Ark. Clarke has no idea that anything has happened at all until the growling in her stomach finally chases her off the rooftop and down into the mess hall for a bowl of watery rations.

Everyone is gathered around the single tv in the mess hall - pilots and J-Tech and K-Science alike molded into a single, grieving unit. Clarke can tell from the minute she walks through the door that they're not watching a sports game. The spectators speak in low, serious murmurs. Heads are bowed in weary respect. There are few tears, but nowadays, no one cries much. 

Monty catches sight of Clarke after she picks up her tray and makes a beeline for her, his mouth tight with worry. 

"Have you seen Raven?"

"She went for a shower after our workout a few hours ago," Clarke answers, carefully placing a bowl of porridge on her tray. "I haven't seen her since, I've been painting. What's up?"

"Spacewalker just went down," he explains, and Clarke catches glimpses of grainy footage of the Jaeger's last stand over his shoulder. She can't remember paying much attention to that particular Jaeger before, but the sight of its shoulder blades suddenly hits her like a freight train, and she sways on her feet until Monty reaches out a hand to steady her. "Both pilots are dead."

"Did they bring down the Kaiju they were up against?" Clarke asks automatically, forcing down the inexplicable wave of nausea. Everyone in her line of work knows what they're up against, knows the odds. She just wants to make sure it was worth the risk.

"Barely," Monty says. His eyes are guarded. "Clarke, Finn Collins was one of the pilots."

"Oh," Clarke says, and then, more quietly,  _oh._ Now she understands why the name  _Spacewalker_  was so familiar. The tray falls out of her hands with a clatter, and another time Clarke might have felt dismay as her porridge ration splashes up the leg of her sweatpants, but that seems so insignificant now. How can she care about a spilled bowl when her best friend is dead -

Finn, who held her hand when the floods washed away the neighbourhood where they planted strawberries together, who kissed her in the darkness under their sheets like she meant something, who saw into every bitter crevice of her mind and could still look her in the eye and tell her she was brilliant -

_No,_ Clarke tells herself harshly. Those aren't her memories. They're in her head, like faded first-person movies, but every line is clouded with the kind of fog that blurred the mainland's skyline tonight. The ghost drift is getting to her. 

She turns and runs. 

\- The metal of the motion rig is cold under her fingers, her Jaeger in hibernation. She wants to wake it from this slumber, wants to scream until all the lights flare on and the metal molds to her control and she wants to slam her fists into something, wants to make a difference. Instead she raises the bottle in her other hand to her lips and grimaces as it burns on the way down -

_Princess Mechanic's_ Conn-Pod is empty by the time Clarke finally finds a J-Tech engineer to unlock the maintenance hatch and let her in, but she goes straight to the right side anyway, Raven's side. Her toe nudges a bottle of rum, unseen in the darkness, and Clarke chases it down when it tips and rolls away, empty. She raises it to her nose even though she can already smell the alcohol.

"Shit," Clarke says. She doesn't just smell it, she can taste it bitter on her own tongue, along with - "Hey, Wick?"

"Still here," the engineer says, hovering in confusion by the hatch. 

"Can you smell vomit?"

"Nope."

"Huh," Clarke says.

\- She kneels in front of the toilet and heaves until she can't anymore, until she leans her head against her arm and slumps, trembling, against the bowl. Once upon a time she kissed the ground Jaegers walked upon, and now she worships a porcelain bowl. Nausea swells up in her again, and she chokes on the taste in her mouth. Her head lulls against her arm again, and her eyes stare blankly at the shower curtain next to her, covered in -

"Tiny frogs," Clarke says. "She's in my bathroom."

"What?" Wick asks as Clarke pushes past him to climb out of the Conn-Pod.

"Thanks for letting me in!" she calls over her shoulder, already jogging down the catwalks towards her apartment. "You can lock up now!"

As luck would have it, she runs into Bellamy Blake on her way.

"Have you seen Raven?" he asks immediately, falling into step next to her. Clarke notices that he matches her strides exactly, even though his legs are longer than hers, and this bothers her a lot. Wells used to do that.

"Heading to her now," she says, pushing aside her irritation. "She's puking in my bathroom."

Bellamy grunts to show he's heard her, but he doesn't leave or anything, and Clarke resolutely ignores him until she reaches her door and he's still standing there, patiently waiting for her to unlock it.

"What do you want?" she snaps.

"She's my friend too," he says, and any other day Clarke would have fought with him, would have used her drift with Raven as a more important claim to her company, but her fingers are shaking as she pulls her lanyard from under her shirt, and Bellamy gently takes her keycard and presses it to the sensor. The door swings open, and Clarke doesn't kick it closed behind her. If Bellamy really wants to follow her in, then she guesses he can do that. Whatever. 

Raven is curled around the toilet, hardly responsive. Clarke grimly wipes her mouth with toilet paper while Bellamy pulls all the blankets off her bed and spreads them out along the bathroom floor. It's warmer than the tiles, at least, and Clarke thinks they might be waiting for Raven to wake up for a while. In the end they settle on either side of her, Raven stretched out on her side in between them. Bellamy's hand carefully unties Raven's limp ponytail and starts to stroke her head though she must be too far gone to feel the comfort. Clarke sits very still and stares at the tiny green frogs on her shower curtain and pretends the goosebumps on her arms aren't from the faintest tingle on her scalp, like Bellamy is stroking her hair instead. 

"Does it ever scare you?" Bellamy asks, after an eternity of silence broken only by Raven's slow, measured breathing. "Our odds of dying in a Jeager?"

"Yes," Clarke says honestly, pulling her knees up to her chest. She still doesn't look at Bellamy. 

For a while, he's quiet again. Clarke watches Raven's chest expand and compress. 

"My mother used to say that fear was a demon," Bellamy says, his voice careful and distant. He sounds more like he's reciting than recounting his own memory. "I think it was easier for her to separate herself from her emotions than to accept that they were part of her. She always said it was the only way to win. But you can't really do that in the drift, can you?"

"I don't really think in the drift."

"Liar," Bellamy says, but there's no bite to his voice. "It's the one place you can't escape yourself."

"Do you want to escape yourself?" Clarke challenges, finally looking over at Bellamy. A shiver runs through her when she finds that he's already watching her, eyes dark. This close, she could count every freckle on the bridge of his nose. She can almost see why Raven slept with him. That might be the ghost drift, too.

"No," Bellamy says. He opens his mouth, to say something else, and Clarke feels like she's just missed a glorious opportunity when his watch suddenly starts beeping incessantly. "Sorry," he says, dismissing the alarm. "I have to go to the Drivesuit room. Wells and I are on standby today."

"Yeah, fair enough," Clarke says, looking down at Raven as Bellamy stands up and stretches out the stiffness in his limbs. Raven looks like she's sleeping a little more peacefully. 

"Let me know how Raven's doing," Bellamy says, one hand on the doorknob. 

"I will. Hey... Bellamy?" Clarke asks.

"Yeah?"

"Can you..." she trails off, wonders what she could possibly say. What she's willing to say. "Can you tell Wells I say..."

He's watching her with an unreadable gaze, and Clarke's chest feels tight. She suddenly remembers that Bellamy has been inside of Wells' mind, that he must know her now as well as he does. It is one thing to know, and another to  _know_. Maybe if the realization hadn't weighed so heavily on her shoulders, she would have taken the chance and said something. It could have been the first step to reconciliation. 

Instead, Bellamy's gaze colours her cheeks with shame and makes her cast her eyes downward. 

"Nevermind," Clarke says. Bellamy departs without another word, and the moment passes. Clarke reaches down and starts stroking Raven's hair in his place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> SYDNEY: Stop fidgeting, Miss Reyes. The last thing on our agenda is the mission with Natrona, and then you're dismissed. You can get through another few minutes, can't you?
> 
> REYES: Yes.
> 
> SYDNEY: Then please go on. Natrona. November the 3rd.
> 
> REYES: It started out as a pretty standard mission. They told us Natrona was small as far as Kaiju went - they nearly classified it as a Category 4 rather than a Category 5, just because of its size. But it was far cleverer than most. We never expected that.
> 
> SYDNEY: Yes, I'm sure.
> 
> REYES: [CENSORED] you. Anyway, we didn't get worried until it became clear Natrona was intentionally staying just out of reach of us. Normally Kaiju don't play around. They throw themselves at you and cause as much damage as they can until they die, and they don't have much in the way of self-preservation.
> 
> SYDNEY: If I wanted a lecture on alien behaviour, I'd have interviewed Mr Green first, Miss Reyes. Please get to the point.
> 
> REYES: Shut your mouth. You wanted me to tell my [CENSORED] story, I'm telling my [CENSORED] story. Natrona intentionally lured us onto shore, knowing that we had the upper hand in the water, but it could hide between buildings and leap out at us way easier. Once it started trampling around Ark's downtown, we knew we had to get it under control, fast. We went to engage it. I'm... not actually sure what happened next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's something of a blessing that Raven vomited up most of the alcohol in her system before passing out, but Clarke still feels the ghost of a headache when her co-pilot finally stirs a few hours later. 

"Ugh," Raven says intelligibly, sitting up with slow, measured movements.

"Yeah, I figured," Clarke says, handing her the bottle of mouthwash from the sink cabinet. Raven grimaces at her, but rinses her mouth out all the same. Clarke watches her wipe her mouth on her sleeve and debates the pros and cons of a heart-to-heart. She knows Raven well enough to know that she won't want to talk about _Spacewalker_ \- about Finn Collins - but she will want Clarke to ask, just so she can fire off some snappy comment and prove she's doing just fine. 

"Where's my rum?" Raven asks with a scowl.

"No," Clarke tells her. "You've had more than enough. You're going to sit here and sober up some more, and then we're going to go to the mess hall and have some greasy breakfast, and then we're going to go to the Kwoon and I'm going to make you work until you can sleep soundly."

"You're awful."

"Yeah, well. You know what they say about drift compatibility," Clarke says. Raven gives a long suffering sigh, then scoots over until she's leaned against the wall next to Clarke, her head resting on Clarke's shoulder. Warmth radiates from the length of her body, pressed up against Clarke's from arm to thigh. It's an unspoken thank you. Clarke picks at a stain on her sweatpants and considers her next words carefully. "Do you want to talk about Spacewalker?"

Raven is silent for a long time. Clarke's not surprised by that, but she is surprised when Raven finally speaks, and her tone is almost sincere. For the briefest of moments, Raven Reyes is just a tired, hurt girl. It's so easy to forget, sometimes, when you're surrounded by people who are just as young and damaged and fierce as you, that in another life they might have still been in college, exams and obnoxious frat boys as their greatest challenges.

"He wasn't just my boyfriend, you know," Raven explains. "That's the part that everyone fixates on, because it makes the gossip more interesting. But it wasn't the most important part to me. He was my family for a long time before we started dating. We kept each other alive when the Kaiju landed. I wanted to lay down and die, but he said no, there was peace on the other side of this, we just had to work hard and get to it."

"I know," Clarke says simply. She's seen this all in Raven's head. There are no other words she can offer as comfort, so she just opens her palm and lets Raven twist their fingers together. Her hand is clammy. 

"I just wanted to survive, but Finn gave me all these dreams about glory, Clarke. The refugee camp we went to didn't have much of a school, but - I found some textbooks, and they made sense, you know? I was good at all this math and science, and I got assigned to work with the guy putting together radios for the first aid teams, and I - I was useful. I figured I could build stuff to help people. But Finn said no, Raven, we can do even better than this. We can be heroes. So we signed up to pilot together, and our sync tests were off the charts. I was so proud to walk beside him. And then all of a sudden we were weeks away from graduation, and he just refused to pilot with me."

Clarke squeezes Raven's hand as a muffled sob interrupts her story. She knows how this ends. 

"He gave in, though. I was pushy. I think he thought he could keep himself separate in the drift. But I just - I knew him so well, Clarke. And because he was too much of a coward to tell me he'd slept with someone else, I got to see it in his head instead."

"He was an idiot," Clarke says, and the anger that rises up in her throat doesn't just belong to Raven. It's hers, too, because Raven is one of the most beautiful people Clarke has ever gotten the privilege to know, and she doesn't care if you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead - Finn Collins had no right to treat Raven like that. 

"You know what they say about drift compatibility," Raven says, echoing Clarke's earlier words. She laughs bitterly. "That's one thing the textbooks couldn't have taught me. There are no secrets in the drift. If someone refuses to pilot with you, just means they're keeping something from you."

Clarke suddenly feels like someone's poured a bucket of cold water down her back. She straightens up suddenly, dislodging Raven's head from her shoulder, doesn't breathe until the tingle fades from her spine. 

"Oh," she says, eyes far away. "Oh god."

"Clarke?"

In all the weeks after Clarke was almost unapproved for active duty, Wells never once tried to persuade her to drift him. Even with all the statistics from their sync tests, heck - even Kane himself trying to convince them to make up and suit up together - he never even raised the possibility. 

Clarke should have caught on sooner. 

"Wells is lying to me," Clarke manages to get out, wheezing. Raven's hand finds her back, doesn't stop rubbing soothing circles in between her shoulderblades until Clarke's breaths finally settle into a comfortable rhythm. They spend the better part of an hour silently crying for each other. Everything feels so  _much._

They've only just decided it's time to head to the mess hall and satisfy their grumbling bellies when the sirens start to wail - the ones that mean a Kaiju's come through the Breach and is headed towards them. 

"Who's on standby?" Raven asks. 

"Wells and Bellamy," Clarke says, feeling restless now that she  _knows._  She wants to talk to Wells now, wants to apologize for the way she's treated him these past weeks. Will he forgive her? It's been so long. She wishes the goddamn Kaiju had picked a better time to attack - now she'll have to wait for the battle to end before she can speak to him.

"I'm not feeling hungry anymore," Raven says, and Clarke knows she's lying because she can feel the ghost of an empty stomach superimposed on her own, but neither of them can just sit still and eat while their friends are out fighting aliens. They head straight to the control room as one unit, stare Kane down when he halfheartedly tries to shoo them out. 

Clarke sits down by the screens that display a live feed of Wells and Bellamy's health stats, and watches Wells' heart beat strong and steady, 72 bpm and slowly climbing as he warms up. She knows the same way she knows that he likes his tea burning hot, or that he dog-ears his favourite books, that his resting heart rate is an even 56 bpm. 

She doesn't worry until he reaches 114 bpm. 

"What's going on?" she asks Kane, who stands in the center of the control room, as stiff as a board, hands behind his back. 

"It's a tough fight," Kane says, and it's all she can get from him. The grainy cameras on the  _Rebel Phoenix_ that relay images back to the Shatterdome are splattered with water droplets and Kaiju blood. Clarke winces as a vicious pummeling from the creature makes a few of the feeds go dark. 

"Why aren't they using the plasma cannon?" Raven demands. 

"The reactor's casing took a bad hit," Kane answers. "Bellamy says they can't build up enough heat without risking a radioactive leak. It's all right, they've still got the hand cannons and the elbow swords."

123 bpm. The Kaiju is driving them hard. Clarke can't sit still anymore, paces the control room violently until Kane tells her she'll be thrown out if she doesn't stop. She settles for chewing her fingernails.

"Kane," Bellamy's out-of-breath voice on the radio makes everyone jump a little. "Sir, we're barely holding our own. Requesting backup."

"Granted," Kane says immediately, clutching his microphone with white knuckles. "Commander Woods will be there in a few minutes. Shift to defensive, just hold your ground until they get there."

"We're already on defense," Bellamy says grimly. "It doesn't look good."

Clarke grabs Kane's microphone and presses down on the button before he can grab it back. 

"Can you lure it to the cliffs off to the North?" she urges. "It'll be easier to dodge it around the rock formations, at least you won't take as many direct hits."

"That you, Clarke?" Wells asks, and the sound of his voice floods her with all sorts of complicated emotions. Raven lays her hand on Clarke's shoulder and squeezes, a concrete comfort.

"Yeah," she chokes.

"We can't move," Bellamy says, sounding frustrated. "It's trying to get past us into the city - _oh_!"

"Bellamy?" Raven demands into the microphone after his voice suddenly cuts off with a cry of pain that rattles in Clarke's skull.

"How long until Commander Woods drops?" Kane barks at a nearby technician. 

"Four and a half minutes, sir," the technician responds quickly. The tension in the control room is so heavy Clarke feels like she can't breathe. 

"That's not enough time!" Wells yells, his voice ragged with pain. "Sir, we've lost control of the left side, the Kaiju just tore our arm off. Bellamy's - he's not doing well. We have to cut the drift short. He's barely conscious, I can't pilot Rebel on my own. Permission to evacuate?"

The video feeds shudder as  _Rebel Phoenix_ appears to fall to one knee, and then, swaying, it topples forward into the ocean. The cameras go dark before they begin to adjust to the lighting underwater.

"Granted," Kane says desperately. "The Jumphawks will pick you up as soon as they drop Commander Woods."

"Clarke," Raven says quietly. "Clarke, let go. You're hurting me."

"I'm sorry," Clarke gasps, immediately dropping Raven's hand when she realizes her nails have drawn blood. Raven doesn't say anything, just wipes the tiny crescent-moon cuts on her jeans and then wraps her arm around Clarke's shoulders. 

"Sir," Wells says. "There's a problem."

Raven's arm twitches around Clarke. 

"I ejected Bellamy's escape pod, he'll be all right. But it looks like mine's jammed."

"No," Clarke breathes. 

"Stay calm," Kane urges, his whole frame shaking with tension. "Commander Woods is on the way, they'll distract the Kaiju."

"There's water leaking into the Conn-Pod," Wells says. He almost sounds calm, but Clarke dares to look at the health feed and he's still at 93 bpm, his stats glowing red. He's scared.

"Wells," Clarke begs, holding the microphone like a lifeline. "You can't die. I - I know you weren't the one who sabotaged my evals. I know you were just trying to protect me. You have to come back so I can make it up to you."

"Who said anything about dying?" Wells jokes, but his voice is strained and his stats are climbing higher and higher. "I'm still right here. It's okay, Clarke. I forgave you a long time ago."

"Jaha, can you last another fifteen minutes?" Kane asks, one hand pressed to his temples. A vein in his forehead pulses. "I have a dive team on the way."

Silence. Clarke's knees give out from underneath her, and she crumples to the floor of the control room with Raven still desperately clutching at her shoulders.

"Negative. The water's up to my waist," Wells says. "I'm sorry. The cracks are getting bigger and it's coming in faster."

"Wells," Clarke says brokenly. "Wells, no."

"Take care of Bellamy for me, all right?" he says, voice suddenly urgent. "He's not a bad sort, once you get to know him. He's going to be a pain in the ass once he wakes up, and he's going to spout all sorts of nonsense about this being his fault, but don't listen to any of it. Promise me, Clarke? And if you ever go back to Phoenix - can you see if there are still flowers on that hill where the water tower used to be?"

"You can come see that yourself," Clarke argues, but before Wells can answer, the water shorts out their communications. The health stats keep transmitting for another few minutes while Clarke sobs on the floor, and she doesn't dare to hope until his heart rate spikes up to the hundreds before slowly, agonizingly dropping to zero. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 11:49 PM September 24 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_From:_ griffinclarke@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ you owe me an explanation

Wells wasn't the one who told the psychologists I was unfit for active duty, was he? That was you. How could you let me believe this?? He was my co-pilot, mom, and my FRIEND. And now he's gone. How could you send me three emails a day asking how I'm doing, and never mention this???? 

And why the fuck did you have to try to sabotage my chances at piloting? You KNEW what this meant to me. It's the only piece of dad I have left. How could you?

Clarke

 

  
_[sent 7:12 AM September 25 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinclarke@ppdc.com  
_From:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ re:you owe me an explanation

Clarke, please understand that everything I have ever done, I do because I love you.  
\- Abby

 

 

_[sent 9:36 AM September 25 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_From:_ griffinclarke@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  re:you owe me an explanation

THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bellamy is sitting upright in his hospital bed by the time Clarke finally convinces the nurses to let her see him. He is sitting on the far left side of the bed, crammed as close to the edge as he can be as though leaving room on his right for a co-pilot that will never again take that place, and he won't stop shivering, even though it is not cold. As she takes a seat in the chair at his side, she automatically reaches for his hand. He doesn't seem to notice at first, the way her thumb gently smooths the goosebumps that bloom on olive skin where white gauze ends. It takes her a moment to realize it's because it's his left arm, the one the Kaiju ripped off. Jaeger amputation is a tricky thing - human limbs remain even after the robot ones are gone, bone lingering longer than metal, but the feeling doesn't always return. Inside the drift, you are the Jaeger and the Jaeger is you. It may as well be a piece of yourself that you're losing.

"Bellamy," Clarke begins, and her voice cracks so badly that she presses her lips into a thin, shaky line and blinks furiously. It takes him an eternity to turn his head ever so slightly, not enough to meet her gaze, just enough to show that he's heard her. 

They say nothing for a long time. Bellamy eventually lays his right hand over hers, their fingers forming a protective cage around the hand that he's lost touch with, and Clarke thinks about Wells' hands superimposed over theirs, thinks about those hands hovering over a chess board and gripping staffs in the Kwoon and teaching her cat's cradle.

It still doesn't seem real. 

"I can't get his voice out of my head," Bellamy says eventually. He sounds exhausted, he sounds defeated, he sounds as old as the heroes from the legends he so loves to tell in the mess hall. 

"I know," Clarke says. 

"No," Bellamy says harshly, the bite of his voice rousing some shadowed, trembling ghost inside the both of them. "No, you don't know."

"He was my best friend," she answers, feeling attacked. "I was in his head too, for longer than you."

Bellamy finally raises his head and meets her eyes. They've stared each other down before but Clarke feels like they were only playing at a fight and this is something akin to a battle, to a catastrophe that will make or break whatever could have been between them. It's common knowledge that Bellamy Blake is a gorgeous human being but Clarke looks at him now and sees him hiding weakness under layers of bandages, hiding fathoms of pain behind bruised and guarded eyes.

Clarke knows death. She felt its presence at her back every night she slept curled up in a hard plastic chair while machines kept her father's heart beating and the spectre of his and Kane's Jaeger ate at his insides. She felt it rustle the curtains the night Jake Griffin's mind finally gave up on the fight his body had lost months before, the night Abby collapsed with a hand over her mouth and Kane just stood at her side, ashen-faced. She felt it hold her hand at the funeral, let it teach her how to bare her teeth at the paparazzi that dared to haunt the cemetery entrance because to them Jake had ceased to be human the moment he walked a Jaeger's gait and became a legend instead. 

Yes, Clarke knows death. She knows how ugly and inevitable and unfair it is. She's already beat her fists on it once. 

The shadows in Bellamy's eyes don't scare her. They just make her want to weep. 

"You don't have to tell me you wish I had died instead," Bellamy says finally. There's only a flicker of uncertainty in his face before he hides it, only a single moment where he can't quite look at her and his eyelids drop with exhaustion. The Kaiju that killed Wells is dead but Bellamy is still frozen in the battle, still fighting tooth and claw because it hasn't ended for him yet.

"Bellamy," Clarke says, and for a moment she understands what Wells must have felt underneath the water, her ribcage crushed with all the weight of the saltwater that won't leave her eyes. "God, no. That's a horrible thing to say."

"We're horrible people," he counters.

"I wish both of you were - I wish - "

Silence as she realizes she cannot finish that sentence. 

"Get out," Bellamy demands.

And Clarke has nothing left to say to fix this, nothing that will suture the hole Wells has left in both of them. So she leaves.

Two days later the Shatterdome organizes a memorial for Wells, as they do for all fallen pilots. It's not the first time Clarke's watched crowds congregate for someone she knocked elbows with at the mess hall, but it never gets any easier. City officials set up a stage in the shadow of the giant Kaiju ribcage downtown, a remnant of the first wave of invasion, now left to mark the landscape like an almost-healed scar. This is as good as it gets. Maybe it's supposed to be symbolic, but Clarke just thinks the bones are hemming her in, hovering above her head like ivory teeth waiting to descend and tear her apart. 

There are speeches, but she doesn't listen to them. She was asked to prepare something, was told it would help her find meaning in Wells' death, but that is a lie. There is no meaning to dying in a war that is less about survival and more about postponing the apocalypse. There is no meaning to yet another Jaeger gone cold and quiet, it's very heart and soul buried six feet under. Clarke stopped buying into that years and years ago. 

Instead, Clarke stands rigidly in a uniform that has never had a speck of blood on it, Octavia and Raven on either side of her. They are holding hands, a chain of three toy soldiers perched on a pedestal that is getting increasingly emptier as gravestones go up and PPDC funding goes down. Clarke would like to think that they are strong, and defiant, and worth something. But she is not sure anyone still believes that anymore. So she lets the voices of faux-compassionate officials wash over her and stares high above a crowd of tired gray faces, high above the shadow of the Kaiju bones that is slowly receding as the sun rises in the morning sky. Somewhere between Ark's skyscrapers she can see patches of cloud and void, painted in pastel watercolours, all blues and purples and fading yellows like the bruises on her knuckles after she went to the Kwoon and threw punches until no one would challenge her anymore and Raven came to take her to bed.

No one dares to mention Bellamy's conspicuous absence.

After the service ends, to Clarke's surprise, it's Miller who comes to her first. Octavia and Raven melt away to let them speak privately - or, as close as one can get in a crowd of handshakes and murmured condolences - and Clarke silent accepts the very brief hug Miller gives her. She knows it's not in his usual nature. It speaks the expanse of a galaxy.

Miller has a change of clothes for her in his backpack, which means Raven helped him. Clarke doesn't really mind - it's a relief to take her uniform off in a grimy, graffiti-scrawled bathroom stall a few blocks down from the ribcage and slip back into clothes that make her feel human, even though they're just jeans and a pink sweater. Miller hands her a helmet once they're out on the sidewalk, and she fumbles a bit with the clasp while he revs the engine of his motorcycle and wordlessly points out the footpegs on the back wheels. Clarke climbs on and wraps her arms around his waist, breathes in exhaust smoke and leather as they leave the Bone Slums in dust. 

They ride for something close to an hour, never staying too long in traffic before Miller guides the bike between lanes and takes shortcuts through alleyways. It's clear that he knows the city much differently than her. Clarke has painted the mainland from the roof of the Shatterdome, has stood guard over it from a Jaeger's vantage point, but she can count on one hand the number of times she's ventured out at street-level with her fellow colleagues. 

Miller chokes the engine on an unpaved parking lot on the side of the highway where skyscrapers have given way to factories and wheat fields. The world abruptly becomes more colourful as Clarke takes her helmet off and shakes her hair out of its messy braid. She sweeps a gaze over the horizon as Miller locks up both helmets, and doesn't like what she sees. It seems like every year the wheat fields grow a little less tall and a little more gray. Clarke turns and follows Miller into the diner they've parked in front of. The inside is red and white. The cheery music playing over the speakers does little to ward off the sadness inside her. 

"You'd like the breakfast special," Miller tells her as she reaches for the menu. Clarke thinks about the beeline he made for the booth in the back, and the way the waitress has brought him a glass of orange juice without asking, and decides to listen. 

"Seems a little far away for a regular place," she comments once they've placed their order. 

"That's the point," Miller says. "We only got to come out when we were off-duty. It was an escape of sorts, on the days we weren't required to save the world, so we could fuck off to the middle of nowhere instead."

"Fair enough," Clarke says, tracing the edge of chipped lacquer on the table between them. 

"I have something to give you," Miller says. "But - food first, I think."

He ends up being right about the breakfast special. It's just past noon, now, but something about greasy eggs and buttered toast warms Clarke up, starts thawing out the parts of her that chilled in Wells' last moments. She wonders how aware Miller is that he's helping her feel human again. 

After they've both scraped their plates clean and the waitress has gone to get change for their bill, Miller reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a piece of paper, folded over and over many times. Clarke's mouth goes dry as she opens it up and sees Bellamy's handwriting. She skims the paper, refusing to read the words yet - she's not ready to find anything other than comfort in the lines of his pen. 

"So it's true, then?" Clarke murmurs. "He's gone to the Wall?"

"You know how the Blakes are," Miller says with a shrug that is at once too casual and too telling. "They never feel good about themselves unless they're contributing to the world somehow."

"Everyone knows the Wall is a waste of resources," Clarke says, looking down. "It'll never keep the Kaiju back."

"Not everyone knows," Miller says. "Not the public."

Clarke shakes her head sadly and twists to stare out the window, at a highway that hasn't been maintained in twelve years, at crops that are barely yielding enough food for everyone, at a sky she remembers being so much bluer in her youth. 

"We're running out of time," she says. She isn't expecting Miller to answer, but he reaches out his hand and almost touches hers. Clarke looks at their fingers, a few centimeters apart on the table, and swallows down the lump in her throat. They are all lying to themselves, all the desperate people in the world, whether they are building Walls or Jaegers or families. Clarke wants to know how much longer before the gavel drops and the truth comes out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last time Clarke and Raven pilot a Jaeger together is the longest drift of Clarke's life. She and Raven are that standby team that day, and 2 pm finds them playing a vicious round of poker with the Drivesuit technicians to stay awake. Clarke is frowning at a hand of scattered clubs, wondering what she can make of it, when the sirens ring. Raven is already looking at Clarke when she turns her head. They're already wearing their jumpsuits, it takes only a moment of silent, flurried activity to dress them both in the Drivesuit exoskeleton. Clarke shivers as the spinal cord clamps down against bare skin the jumpsuit doesn't cover, and Raven slips her hand against her palm, so much warmer than that cold metal. 

There's always that lurch in her stomach when the Conn-Pod drops, like she's at the summit of a roller coaster looking down, and the fear never goes away but it does get easier to swallow. 

"We're ready," Raven says, fiddling with her hand controller as systems come to life around them, little LEDs blinking a green Clarke has come to associate with battlelust. 

"Initiating in ten, nine, eight, seven..." Kane begins, and Clarke closes her eyes as he counts down, breathes out to calm herself. The drift hits like a wave breaking over her, and Clarke lets the riptide pull her out. 

\- Summers in Panama are sweltering, heat so heavy that the walk to the beach makes her feel lightheaded. Her feet sink in white sand, hot grains swallowing her battered sneakers and burning the skin her shoes don't cover. She hisses her displeasure and tries to kick off the sand with every other step, wishes she could run ahead and start peeling off her clothes, but Finn's even worse with the heat than she is and doesn't seem inclined to pick up the pace. She scans the beach for a place they can leave their towels, already eager to jump in the - 

\- water. The first time she sees the ocean she is already a Jaeger Academy student, already on the shortlist for glory. Wells squeezes her hand as the helicopter touches down at their home Shatterdome. Clarke looks at the dark waves lapping at the shore far below - 

\- She's not afraid of heights, she's not afraid, she's _not_ , but it's one thing to be inside the Jaeger, looking down, and quite another to be welding reinforcement plates to the outside. She breathes in, out, in, out, tugs on the taut cords of her harness. It's perfectly safe. She's logical. There's nothing to fear. -

_We're going to be okay. Repeat after me._

_We're going to be okay. We're going to be okay. We're going to be okay._

_That's it._

"Vitals are looking good, girls. You're holding strong at 84%," Kane tells them, and ClarkeandRaven suppress a flare of annoyance at his interruption. Metal groans as the Jumphawk helicopters begin to haul them into the air, all 2200 screaming tons of them. It takes just a few minutes to the bay. Lincoln gives them just a few words of encouragement, and then the steady beat of helicopter blades fades away. ClarkeandRaven clench their metal fingers into fists the size of large vans, and stride into deeper waters to take up their defensive stance.

Kane passes along regular reports on the Kaiju's location every minute. Then, every five minutes. Then, every fifteen. Frustration sinks into every crisp crackle of the radio as they realize the Kaiju has no intention of coming closer any time soon. 

"Permission to seek and engage, sir?" they ask. The Drift is alive with energy and resentment. Behind their eyelids, ClarkeandRaven see blue as bright as Kaiju blood. It's time to make them pay. 

"Negative," Kane responds a moment later. "At least for the time being. It's still far out, still seems to be circling the Breach. You're to remain on defense for Ark until the situation changes."

_Guess we have a long few hours to occupy ourselves._

_What a shame your company is so deplorable._

_You'll survive._  

When Clarke and Wells were ClarkeandWells, they used to play chess in the drift. Inside the mind it was less a game of strategy and more one of control - how surely could you plan out your next moves when your opponent knew your intentions as soon as you thought them? It was a test of wills and mental endurance, a sort of doublethink - plan to do one thing while simultaneously discard it as a viable move. The amount of sheer concentration it took simply to remember where all the pieces were made it a rigorous way to pass the time. 

The half of them that is sometimes Raven doesn't have the patience for chess, and the half of them that is sometimes Clarke doesn't have the emotional scar tissue to handle an exercise so deeply drenched in Wells' memory. Instead they stick to simple card games, the rounds quick and dirty. They both cheat, creating cards to fill their mental hands that have already been played in the deck. Half the game is just calling the other out. 

Kane's updates come rarer and rarer as there is nothing new to report. His voice coming at a half hour mark jars ClarkeandRaven out of their Go Fish round. Once he takes his leave, they mentally throw down their cards in frustration and retreat to opposite ends of the connection, stewing in individual impatience, mirrored back and magnified. Another half hour passes, another tired report from Kane, and nothing to show for the threat tainting these waters. 

_Stop humming, I can hear you._

_Sing with me, then. I know you know it._

_Noooo. You can't make me._

_Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world... She took the midnight train going anywhere!_

_I can hardly believe you can't hit the right notes even in your head._

_Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere._ _A singer in a smokey room, t_ _he smell of wine and cheap perfume -_

 

Instead of words aligned in concrete thought, the Drift hums with a hazy image in response. Memories in the Drift are dangerous, if they belong to only one participant - it's too easy to become unbalanced. But _collaboration_ \- that's a powerful tool. The image solidifies as ClarkeandRaven focus on it. It's not a memory. It's not past or present or future, it simply exists, somewhere between fantasy and possibility. 

\- Clarke lounging in a darkened room, golden streetlights casting glowing rectangles on the wall opposite the only window. Her lips are painted a dark red, poised around a cigarette held loosely between two fingers. She takes a draw and lowers her hand, then blows the smoke out both nostrils, like a bull about to charge - 

_I don't smoke._

_I'm just following what the lyrics say. Who are you to deny art?_

\- The haze in the room shifts as another presence comes out of the shadows. Raven walks towards the bed like she's a Valkyrie, like she's come to impart victory and justice in equal measure. The cigarette is gone. Clarke's empty fingers curl into pale sheets as the bed sinks under Raven's weight - 

_So that's how it's going to be?_

_You're not the only one allowed to fantasize in the Drift._

\- Raven chuckles at that, brushes a lock of golden hair away and leans forward to bestow open-mouthed kisses on Clarke's exposed neck. Blue shadows meet hazy golden light, in this patch of time and space where everything is soft as skin and sheets. Clarke lies back and pulls Raven with her -

_Where did our clothes go?_

_Oh my GOD I'm doing my best, can't you just let me get you off in the Drift and be done with it?_

_Drift-you hasn't even taken me out to dinner yet. There's no natural progression to this narrative. I expect to be wooed._

_Fuck narrative._

They give up the illusion of banter and pass the image between them lightning-quick, molding it into something that dissolves into mere flashes of sensation, of mental caresses. ClarkeandRaven gasp inside their masks, strain against the constrains of the motion rig. Dimly they are aware their vitals are still being broadcast back to the Shatterdome, that it may not be too difficult for the technicians monitoring their brainwaves to realize what they are doing, but these things fade in importance with final, shuddering whimpers. The world could end and they would still have this.

Everything passes so much quicker and so much slower in the Drift. ClarkeandRaven linger in that hazy room for hours, in their slowing heartbeats and content breathing. An eternity too soon, Kane's voice breaks the peace. 

"Girls, it's time to move. The Kaiju's on its way."

"We hear you," they answer, shaking off their serenity. They have a monster to kill.

"You've been in the Drift for eleven hours," Kane says. "That's almost a record. How do you feel?"

They think for a moment. 

"Hungry."

Kane chuckles. 

"All you have to do is take down the ugly Category 5 coming your way and we'll have warm meals waiting here for you. 10 miles out. Good luck," he says, and then the radio crackles, leaving them with the quiet, rhythmic _ping_ of radar.

Natrona doesn't die easy. It's another three hours before it finally stops skirting the edges of _Princess Mechanic's_ vision, and by that time fourteen straight hours of a Drift is starting to grate on their nerves. Regardless of how much you love someone, there's only so much of them you can take before the brush of their mind against yours starts to feel like sandpaper on raw skin.

When Natrona finally makes up its mind, it veers sharply away from the frontal attack it had been feinting and heads straight for Ark. 

"Don't let it past you!" Kane urges in their earpieces, an unnecessary reminder of the lives at stake. ClarkeandRaven twist their metal joints and sprint after Natrona's lean, hungry shape as fast as the water lapping at the knees will let them. The strain against the motion rig has them both breathing heavily as they gain on Natrona. 

In the Jaeger Academy, they call it the miracle mile: that last, precious stretch of ocean before a Kaiju makes landfall. They're trained to defend the miracle mile at all costs, lest they repeat the mistakes of the very first Kaiju attacks, the ones that ended with entire cities torn apart. ClarkeandRaven carve a jagged line along Natrona's flank trying to get a grip on the monster. It slips out of their reach at the very last moment, and it's impossible to tell which one of them is howling in rage and pain and fear as Natrona breaks the miracle mile. The Drift echoes with their anger, mirrored back and forth until it becomes deafening. 

_Up!_

They wrench themselves forward, not ready to give up just yet. Up against Ark's skyline, Natrona looks smaller than its maneuvers in the water would have them believe.  _Princess Mechanic's_ right hand closes around a freight ship docked in the harbour, and not a thought is spared to the legalities and the paperwork Kane will have to deal with come morning. Baseball was never their sport as children, but they don't need to know much to heft the ship in their hands like a bat and stalk into the city after Natrona. 

It slithers between buildings, always just a step ahead of them, tauntingly close but always just out of reach. ClarkeandRaven bear the disadvantage of size, feeling slow and lumbering in the shadow of skyscrapers. They round a corner, freight ship turned baseball bat at the ready, and - 

And they never see Natrona coming. 

It crashes into their right side without warning, and it never should have happened like this, but they're caught off guard, and somehow it hits at just the angle to bring heavy, clawed limbs onto  _Princess Mechanic's_ head. Metal bows and glass shatters. They scream as one and run out of breath before the sirens in the cockpit stop wailing. Natrona rears back, and it's the second blow that snaps the motion rig on the right. They must imagine it, because there's no way they hear the sound of a spine snapping over the din. 

Immediately the Drift breaks in two - they are not ClarkeandRaven they are Clarke and Raven and yet something must remain because they are still screaming in unison and Clarke thinks she has never felt anything worse than this, not even when she watched Wells' heart slow. She does not know how to breathe, she can't feel her legs, she does not know where she ends and Raven begins. There are only two things she knows. They cannot die, and Natrona cannot get away. Through the crescendo in her head Clarke forces them to keep going, rains vicious attacks on Natrona's armoured back. There is no way there is still air left in her lungs but somehow she is still screaming, or maybe that is Raven. 

"- retreat, I am ordering you -"

Through gaps in the pain as Raven's consciousness flickers, Clarke can hear Kane's voice in her ears. He is begging. She is begging too, not aloud, but in her head. She wants it to stop. She wants it to have never happened. She wants that hazy, smoke-filled room again.

"- Indra and Octavia are on their way - just stay alive - _Clarke_ -"

_Clarke_ _!_

Her eyes slide shut, and there is only the sensation of weightlessness as they fall backwards into void.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> SYDNEY: You're aware of the damages you caused, aren't you? After Miss Griffin lost control of the Jaeger, it fell backwards into a nearby office building that hadn't been completely evacuated. Your _Princess Mechanic_ crushed over 300 innocent civilians when it collapsed. That's not including the death count that arose from Natrona wreaking havoc in Ark's streets until _Mariposa Blue_ was dispatched to bring it down.
> 
> REYES: ...I'm aware.
> 
> SYDNEY: If the PPDC had any sense, they would have decommissioned you and Miss Griffin right then and there.
> 
> REYES: Whatever you say.
> 
> SYDNEY: No snappy comebacks for me now? No crude language? Why, Miss Reyes, it's like you've finally learned to hold your tongue. What's gotten into you?
> 
> REYES: I'm tired. I'm so [CENSORED] tired. Please, can I go now? *muffled sob*
> 
> SYDNEY: ...Yes. I'll call for someone to escort you back to the medical wing.
> 
> _*click*_
> 
> Recording over. Press 1 to playback, press 2 to skip to next track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me. I have a lot of feelings about the 100 + Jaeger pilots, you have a lot of feelings about the 100 + Jaeger pilots, we can cry together on [my tumblr.](http://www.kindclaws.tumblr.com) Actually, we can just cry together in general. No reason needed. Literally just come cry in my inbox and I'll be like 'same'.  
> A little ramble on names: I have decided Jake and Kane's Jaeger was Dadly Justice. It feels fitting given Kane's recent adoption of like, half the remaining Delinquents. Natrona is the Trigedasleng word for 'traitor' and it's lowkey supposed to represent Murphy, bc he injures Raven. We'll momentarily ignore that Murphy already has a counterpart in this universe.
> 
> Thanks to:  
> [Fake tweets thingy](http://www.lemmetweetthatforyou.com/)  
> [Fake texts thingy](http://iphonefaketext.com/)  
> [Aaaaaand, fake notes thingy.](http://www.writingfont.com/send-handwritten-letters-online/)
> 
> Happy Birthday to [panreivonreyes](http://www.panreivonreyes.tumblr.com/), who's like, 90% of the reason I finally finished this shit. You go girl. Next chapter up in the next six months, probably, but who knows. I am a disgrace to updated fics everywhere.


	3. vici

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS: characters probably have PTSD, minor character deaths (mostly canonical), trauma flashbacks/panic attacks, Octavia swears a lot. More weird non-explicit drift sex.
> 
> I just want you to know that the formatting for this chapter took literal hours. Specifically, 4 hours. That's not including screenshot editing time, or writing time, or writing editing time.
> 
> So what I'm saying is: fuck this particular chapter.

 

 

 

Clarke doesn't remember the Jumphawks digging her body out of the half-crushed Conn-Pod after Raven went dark and they lost control of the _Princess Mechanic_. She only remembers waking up to a blindingly bright overhead light and screaming like she'd never stop.

They tell her that she'll recover from her physical injuries soon enough, that it's nothing serious, that the pain is all in her head.  _That doesn't make it any less strong!_ Clarke thinks, fighting against the anesthetic they shoot through her IV as soon as it becomes clear she isn't going to stay still. From somewhere in the back of her mind an answering cry of pain echoes, and Clarke reaches for it desperately, knowing it's the shadow of Raven's mind brushing against hers, a Drift hangover made all the more worse by the abrupt end of their connection. Whoever coined the term _clean break_ was wrong. There is nothing clean about the raw, jagged edges of them, nothing easy about the sandpaper against their consciousness. Clarke can't see Raven, has no idea where they've taken her co-pilot, but they clutch tightly for as long as they can, finding the barest of comforts in the mental equivalent of their fingers tangled together.

The anesthetic makes itself known eventually, on one or both of them, and then they are just Clarke and Raven, adrift in a starless ocean, rather than ClarkeandRaven.  

It's a long few weeks. Clarke spends the first few in a wheelchair that matches Raven's as doctors compare x-rays of their spines, which do not match. Clarke steals a few copies from Radiology and lines up the translucent slices, her fingers tracing the hard line of her vertebrae and the jagged break in Raven's. She tries to explain to the doctors that they are treating this all wrong, that they are treating Clarke and Raven as separate people, separate x-rays. In fact they are something closer to the two x-rays overlapped, their shared spines half-broken. That's why Clarke can't walk yet even though her body is physically intact. That's why Raven still has feeling in her legs where there should be none, agony that drives her doctors to hope that maybe there is still a chance they could reverse the nerve damage. 

It's the worst Drift hangover of Clarke's life.

After a few weeks, it fades, like all things. Clarke stands up, shaking, and can no longer remember quite how Raven's paralysis felt. And Raven, well. Raven remains in her wheelchair, hands limp in her lap, and stares out the window in her hospital room that looks towards the harbour they failed to defend. She says nothing as Clarke signs the paperwork, fields Kane's worried calls, and rolls Raven out of her sterile prison. 

They find a cottage on the cliffs high above Ark City, where they can still watch over like forgotten sentinels.  _Princess Mechanic_ fell in mid-October. It is now well into December. The half-repaired hole in downtown they left when the Jumphawks came to airlift their Jaeger's silent corpse out of its grave is now covered in a fine layer of snow, and people have learned to walk around it as they do their holiday shopping. Raven still won't say more than a few dull words when Clarke attempts to start conversation, so she turns the radio on to chase the stale quiet out of their cottage, only to turn it back off again when it plays nothing but a loop of obnoxious caroling and reports of more vicious Kaiju attacks all around the world. 

And so, Christmas Day finds Clarke curled in the living room's window seat in silence, a pencil clutched in stiff fingers. She has colours, a full spectrum of pastels and paints, but they belong to a world before the first Kaiju attacks, to a world where she and Wells would climb up the water tower for a better view of the sunset's golds and pinks and purples. The world as it is now, the one outside the window, is washed in shades of white and black, the coastline and Ark City's twinkling lights obscured by snowflakes falling in slow-motion. Wells used to call these fairytale snowflakes, because they were the fluffy wet kind that clumped together and swirled with every gust of wind. 

The world is too grayscale for colours, and so Clarke draws only in pencil. She draws their Jaegers hidden in the shadows of the hangar,  _Rebel Phoenix_ and  _Princess Mechanic_ standing side by side, impenetrable fortresses. She draws her father in his Drivesuit, refuses to think about the lines of circuitry burned into his body as he lay in the hospital. She draws until she stops thinking about anything. 

Hours later dusk has fallen outside and Clarke doesn't realize she's been straining to see her sketchpad in the darkness until the light flickers on abruptly. She looks up, finds Raven with her hand on the light switch. Their bulbs are the old kind, the incandescent ones no one uses anymore, and Clarke blinks as liquid gold seeps into every corner of the room. It almost feels like sunlight. And like that, the colours are back. 

"Hey," she says softly, as Raven lowers her hand and rolls her wheelchair closer. There are reddened pillow creases on her left cheek, meaning that Raven just got out of bed. It doesn't surprise Clarke. Raven spends most of her time asleep now, dreaming parallel lives where they haven't made so many mistakes. 

"You think they'll deliver a pizza in that weather?" Raven asks, looking past her to the snowstorm still swirling outside. 

"Probably not," Clarke answers. "I think we have instant oatmeal somewhere in the cupboards."

Raven sighs, rubbing her creased cheek with one tired hand. Clarke forces an equally exhausted smile. She doesn't feel much like celebrating either. Raven rolls closer, parks her wheelchair next to the window seat, and leans her head against Clarke's arm. For a moment they drape themselves in silence like a mourning shawl. 

"I miss him too," Raven admits quietly, and Clarke doesn't quite register the meaning of her words until Raven reaches out, traces a hesitant finger along the edge of her sketchpad, and Clarke looks down and realizes she's been drawing Bellamy's face. For a moment they both stare at the paper, entranced, and then Clarke jolts herself away from the heavy weight of his gaze. The Jaeger Academy talked a lot about the R.A.B.I.T, about how to avoid chasing memories in the Drift, about how to refuse the ghosts when they came knocking at your door. They never taught Clarke much about the _aftermath_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke hums as she heats up two bowls of instant oatmeal in the microwave. Raven drums her fingers absently on the kitchen table, not quite to Clarke's tune, and stares hard at something unseen; a memory, perhaps. 

"What day is it?" Raven asks suddenly. Clarke stops humming, and she stops drumming. The microwave beeps deafeningly in the silence. 

"December 25th," Clarke answers. Her eyebrows furrow as she thinks harder. "Wednesday, I think."

"Fuck," Raven says, eyes glazed over. Clarke doesn't really blame her for losing track of time. It flows weirdly in their little cottage up on the cliff, apart from the world they have failed. She herself only really knows its passage because a PPDC volunteer drives up every Monday to bring supplies and make sure they haven't died yet. Kane's doing, she's sure, though she's never been able to tell how much of his care is his own instinct and how much is left over from Jake's ghost in his mind. The microwave beeps again, incessantly, so Clarke opens it up and carries the bowls to the table. They dig in without another word. 

"I didn't get you anything for Christmas," Clarke admits as she scrapes the bottom of her bowl with her spoon. 

"There's nothing I want that money could buy," Raven says dully. She leans back against the wheelchair's headrest. "Fuck. You know what I want, Clarke? An orgasm. What I wouldn't give just to feel  _something_ under my waist."

Clarke makes a non-committal noise under her breath. An idea is forming in her mind. She washes the dishes as Raven silently wheels herself back to bed and turns the logistics of her plan over and over in her brain thinking about _what_ and  _how_ and  _this is a line we can't uncross._ In the end she gathers her courage about her like a suit of armour and dives into the back of the closet where she dumped all their training equipment the day they moved in, because it was simply too much and too hard to look at. Under moth-eaten sweaters she finds Kwoon staffs and Raven's toolbox and training manuals  _and -_

She digs it out and sits back on her heels, examining her treasure. The three-branched headpiece isn't quite a helmet, but it's not protection Clarke's seeking. It's a  _connection._ She sets it aside and dives back in for its pair, emerging a moment later dusty and victorious. 

Raven's room is dark and silent. Clarke knocks anyway, holding both headpieces under her arm and biting her lip nervously. 

"Yeah? Come in," Raven answers lowly, just before Clarke's about to give up and turn away from the door. She steps through with her heart in her throat. Raven's wheelchair is abandoned at the foot of the bed. Raven herself is curled up on her side on the far edge of the bed, back braced against the wall. She looks very small all alone in her bed. Clarke holds up the headpieces, and she swears she can see a spark of interest in Raven's eyes, the first she's been able to coax out of her in weeks. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Portable pons," Clarke answers with a nod. She takes another step forward. "You can say no. But... Raven... Would you like to drift with me again?"

Raven does not answer for a long time. She stares at the headpiece with a longing so potent and all-encompassing that Clarke can see it in the tremble of her shoulders, her lips parting soundlessly with all the reasons she cannot. She waits. 

"What's the point?" Raven asks at last. Not quite a yes, but not a no, either. 

"Well," Clarke says, and pauses. "You said you wanted an orgasm for Christmas. You might not be able to feel your legs anymore... but I can feel mine." The weight of Raven's stare on her slows time, makes Clarke feel like she's standing underwater. Half a dozen emotions flicker over Raven's face, each brief and beautiful and gone too quickly for Clarke to read. 

"Come here," Raven murmurs, struggling to sit up, and Clarke crawls forward without hesitation, leaving the pons headpieces at the foot of the bed and laying carefully along Raven's side, two commas curved together in the blank space of wrinkled bedsheets. At first they do nothing but kiss, sweetly, fleetingly, lips brushing against cheeks and jaws and foreheads. Apologies, and promises, and the simple joy of human touch rolled into one. Raven's head surges up from the pillow, her mouth chasing pleasure, and Clarke draws her tongue down the hard line of the straining tendons in her neck until she leans back and tilts her chin for easier access. 

"Clarke," she groans, fists curling into the bedsheets beneath her. "Clarke, I want to feel now."

In response she hums a little and keeps sucking designs into Raven's throat because - well. She's enjoying this too. 

" _Clarke_ ," Raven insists, her voice a gasp, and finally Clarke acquiesces and returns with the headpieces in her hands. She puts Raven's on first, pushing loose strands of hair away from her temples so the sensors fit snugly against bare skin, and gives her one more gentle kiss after she's made sure Raven will be comfortable. Clarke has hers settled upon her head even faster, her fingers tingling with anticipation. 

"Count us in," she tells Raven with her finger hovering over the startup button. 

"Ready for the Drop?" Raven says with a grin, her eyes fixed firmly on Clarke's. She finds her own mouth mirroring that same giddiness. 

"Ready."

"Initiating in ten, nine, eight, seven..." and on  _one_ they are joined again, ClarkeandRaven all together in a brilliant union of flashing neurons and pulsing veins. 

\- morning, the pale sun shining through the blinds, her mother setting down the hairbrush and pulling all her hair back into a strict ponytail, smoothing down the stray wisps that escape and curl around her cheekbones. 

"Why don't you wear your hair down more often?" she asks, kicking her feet against the edge of the bed. Abby turns, gives a sad smile. 

"Oh, honey," she says, and presses a kiss to her forehead. "There'll be time for relaxing after the war." - 

\- she laughs around a mouthful of cake, and beside her Monty grins and pops his spoon out of his mouth.

"Aren't you glad you came to the party?"

"Of course," she says. "I'm a guest of honour. How could I miss it?" 

Her gaze drifts across the room to the others celebrating the approval of two new Jaeger pairs. Everyone important is here; Monty, Jasper, Miller, so many faces that fill her with warmth. She sees blonde hair reflected in Bellamy's incredulous eyes and has to swallow down her laughter, because they have no idea how alike they are, do they? - 

\- her shock echoing through the connection the first time she encounters a memory of pressing Bellamy up against a wall, a memory that is not her own, a memory that makes her flush.  _See something you like?_ the Drift asks, and they - 

They are  _ClarkeandRaven,_ echoing endlessly into each other, a feedback loop of comfort and warmth and  _oh, there you are._ They press together, straining against the constraints of skin and flesh. Collaboration, again. 

_Pants off, now. Please. I want to feel._

_Talk me through. Tell me what you like, tell me everything -_

The Drift superimposes two realities on top of each other, stacking like translucent xrays, bleeding into each other like a double exposed photograph. In the reality of sensation ClarkeandRaven are curled together, sharing stuttering breaths, both of them keenly focused on the hand that slips through golden curls and lower, against slick skin. In the reality of imagination, they are sharing that sensation, in the pleasure that belongs to both of them. 

_Slower. Slower, yes, like that. Draw it out, please, don't let this end yet, not yet, not ever. Slower._

In this quiet corner of the universe, just four walls and one bed and two minds molded together, ClarkeandRaven find their release and chase it with lithe fingers and open-mouthed kisses until they are gasping together. The world could end. The Kaijus could come crashing through the cottage that very moment. And it would be okay, because until their heartbeat slows from the high, until they catch their breath - they are invincible, and timeless, and infinite.

Before they separate, Clarke catches a glimpse of freckled skin in the corner of her eye. Neither she nor Raven have freckles. She looks, and finds a memory of Bellamy. He is younger, not so much in years as in pain. He blinks at her, slowly, smiles as lazily as a cat, makes no move to cover his bare chest from her eyes. Clarke looks at Raven. Her gaze is level, unashamed. It may be Raven's memory, but they both brought him here.

_Yes, he really did look that young, once._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 8:39 PM December 27 2024]_  
_To:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_From:_  griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  timing

They're attacking more often, aren't they? Than the original timeline we predicted?

-Abby

_[sent 8:56 PM December 27 2024]_  
_To:_ griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_From:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  re: timing

Yes. I'm sorry.

Kane.

_[sent 10:25 PM December 27 2024]_  
_To:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_From:_  griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  timing

I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't prepared to hear the answer, Marcus. I'll do my best to buy you more time. 

Let me know if you hear from Clarke, please.

-Abby

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the mornings the coast of Ark City is drowned by a blanket of fog. Sometimes Clarke bundles up in her winter clothing and drinks her steaming coffee at the edge of the cliff, looking at the precipice where solid ground ends and cloud begins. On mornings like those it is infinitesimally more difficult to believe that the Earth is a sphere, a circle with no end, because she feels like she is standing at the very edge of the world.  

It usually doesn't last long. By noon the sun's weak winter rays chase away enough of the fog that she can see the sea below the edge, along with Ark City nestled in the curve of the coast itself, and the world seems bigger and less fantastical. 

_Commander Woods_ goes down late enough in the day that Clarke can see the wreckage of the blood-red Jaeger sink into the harbour, waves crashing furiously against the jagged metal where the water isn't deep enough to fully submerge it. This far away she wouldn't be able to spot the escape pods bobbing on the surface, but something tells her she won't need to look for them. The Jumphawks circle the wreckage like vultures, but they don't descend. There aren't any escape pods to pick up. Clarke feels some hard lump in her throat, a rock of emotion she can't swallow down. She didn't even know the pilots very well, not as individuals, only as a trio that would pass her in the hallways of the Shatterdome and nod in unison. And now she will never know them that way. 

Clarke is tired of losing people. 

It's too painful to keep looking at  _Commander Woods_ so instead she looks at Ark City, where two hulking corpses rest like scars on the city she's taken as her home. Hate and anger bubble up inside of her at the sight of the dead Kaijus that brought down her fellow pilots. In the city the shelters must be releasing their trembling occupants back into the open air now. People must be finding their way home, finding their favourite coffeeshops smashed by the stray footstep of a god, finding their street flooded with a small tsunami, finding the bodies of monsters on their doorsteps. By now scavengers will be racing to beat the PPDC clean up forces, climbing all over the dead Kaijus to harvest flesh and blood and bones. They'll find plenty of buyers on the black market, they always do. Kaiju groupies, rich collectors with homes far away from the ocean, people who think powdered Kaiju bones will cure their diseases. The list is never-ending, and the Kaijus keep coming. 

They've never fought two at a time before. Clarke's hatred fills her to the brim and overspills, staining the facade of her outer calm. The emptiness that remains in its wake is filled by foreboding, instead. 

She turns away from the cliff and takes small, measured steps back towards the cottage. Raven has wheeled herself out onto the porch. She is shivering. The door is open behind her, and from inside slip voices on the radio carrying news of the death tolls. Raven usually mourns by pretending she doesn't care, that nothing touches her. She likes her space. If Clarke were a selfless person she would have stopped walking a few steps in front of her. But she is not. She is only a girl whose love is being battered by waves and toxic blue blood, and so she kneels in front of Raven, begging with her eyes. 

"Come here," Raven murmurs, and Clarke sags against her knees, buries her hands and face in Raven's lap. Her hands, so clever and nimble with machinery, are gentle as they start combing through Clarke's tangled hair. 

"I can't believe we survived for so many years just for them to slaughter us," Clarke says, muffled by Raven's legs. "There has to be another way."

Raven's hands still in her hair. She sighs. 

"Sorry, Griffin. I'm no good at motivational speeches."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 4:26 PM January 3 2025]_  
_To:_  jordanjasper@ppdc.com  
_From:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  ?!?!?!

Where are the hell are you, Jordan? Why has Green just run into my office screaming something about you drifting with a piece of a Kaiju brain? 

I know grief makes the best of us reckless but please THINK BEFORE YOU GET YOURSELF KILLED.

Kane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 5:49 PM January 3 2025]_  
_To:_ griffinclarke@ppdc.com, reyesraven@ppdc.com  
_From:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_ we need to talk about Bellamy Blake

There's been a development in what we know about Kaijus. I can't say much now, because this is top-security clearance, but it's important, and it's going to happen soon. We need Bellamy Blake. Octavia and Nathan are on permanent standby at the Shatterdome now that we have only two active Jaegers left, and I know you two were the next closest to him. Could you go get him?

Kane

_[sent 5:56 PM January 3 2025]_  
_To:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_From:_  griffinclarke@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  re: we need to talk about Bellamy Blake

On our way. Clarke.

P.S Raven's upset I didn't include her in the signature and wants you to have donuts for us when we arrive. Realistically, it'll take us at least a day to drive there and back, and there's no telling how stubborn Bellamy's feeling. Eta two days, for now, will send updates if we have service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They load up in Raven's truck; an ancient-looking Frankenstein of a creature hobbled together from what Clarke guesses used to be at least 3 separate vehicles. What it lacks in youth it makes up for with sheer horsepower - another one of Raven's additions, which, honestly, seems a little unnecessary for a truck. 

It snowed on New Year's, another one of those fairytale snowstorms that made their little cottage feel like the inside of a snowglobe, and the remnants of that storm crunch underneath Clarke's heavy workboots. Raven's wheels are having trouble finding traction in such a thick snowfall, so Clarke pushes her along to the passenger side and then tosses the chair in the truckbed. She pauses with one hand on the driver's door, looking back at the cottage that has been their home for the last few weeks. Raven hasn't left it once since they were discharged from the hospital. Clarke's only left it a few times to go hiking by the cliffside and scream herself hoarse to the ocean, where Raven won't hear her and worry. This departure, now, is different. It's bigger. 

Clarke tastes iron in her mouth, and knows she's afraid. But then Raven leans over and bangs her fist against the chair, and there are no more reasons to put off their first foray back into the real world. So she climbs in. 

Neither of them speak as the engine rumbles to life and they descend, slowly, on the steep mountain road back to Ark City. Raven pulls a map out from under her seat and unfurls it over the dashboard. Clarke glances over, just a glimpse, and sees her mouthing the names of highways silently as she traces their path. Bellamy's gone North, to the section of the Wall they're building near Walden, his and Octavia's hometown. Clarke doesn't know the way, but she keeps driving, trusting Raven to tell her when to turn.

They drive for hours until Clarke's eyes are straining through the dusk, at a straight horizon swathed in shades of gray-blue. She remembers painting snow scenes in her childhood, the prodigal student of a string of art teachers whose names and faces she's long forgotten. She remembers a classroom full of round-faced artists carefully trying to capture the same landscape; a grinning snowman against a backdrop of pines and a crooked wooden fence. She remembers the teacher, hovering over her shoulder, loudly praising her for using soft blues for snow in the shade, rather than gray.  _You have a good eye for colour,_ the teacher had said then. Didn't do Clarke much good, did it? Since the Kaijus invaded the world has always seemed a little grayer to Clarke. Maybe the blue of snow in the shade simply can't compare to the vivid blue of the Kaiju blood she sees in her nightmares. 

"Pull over at the next motel," Raven says, breaking the silence. Clarke glances automatically at the clock and grimaces. 

"I can keep going," she insists. "At least another hour or two."

"Fuck, Clarke, I'm sicking of watching you squint at the road. C'mon, let's get some sleep. Maybe the snowplows will clear some more of it during the night."

So Clarke pulls over, because really, when has she ever been able to deny Raven something? They get a room the size of Clarke's closet back home before the Kaijus, and when Clarke's drifting off with her face nuzzled in Raven's neck, the other woman is still petting her hair soothingly. In the morning it's the grumble of their stomachs that wakes them instead of the alarm they forgot to set, so they get beef jerky and pretzels at a nearby gas station and Raven handfeeds Clarke as she stares out at the windshield. Clarke makes the split second decision to lick her fingers playfully and the outraged shriek Raven gives makes her grin for another three highway exits. Her chest feels tight this morning, and the laughter helps. It's not a  _bad_ tight, per say, not quite worry or fear. It's the anticipation. It's been months since they've heard from Bellamy, left with nothing but a letter each.

They reach the Wall just after noon, and both of them sober up at the sight of it blotting out the horizon. It's an ugly, monstrous thing, sitting on the coast like a scar stitched by uncaring hands. Raven presses her lips together and makes a disdainful sound in her throat. 

"I know," Clarke murmurs. She feels like she has to be quieter in the Wall's shadow, out of respect, like she's already mourning the lives it won't save. "It'll never keep them at bay."

They find the foreman's block after stopping to ask for directions twice. Clarke zips up her coat with a full-body shiver as Raven sets off without hesitation, apparently not in the mood to be pushed. The foreman is tall and broad-shouldered, but his soft eyes and scraggly ginger beard make him look much younger. He does a double-take when he sees them, obviously recognizing them from newsreels, but recovers quickly. He shakes their hands and invites them inside to sit so Raven won't have to crane her neck up at them. Clarke puts on her most professional smile and makes not of the L-E-M-K-I-N stitched onto his chest in small, neat letters. 

"I have to say, I didn't expect to have two Jaeger pilots sitting in my office today," he says, steeping his fingers in thought. "What brings you to Walden? It's not exactly a tourist destination."

"I'm afraid we're not here on a social visit," Clarke says politely. Raven's fidgeting with the edge of his desk, where the plastic surface has slightly peeled away, and she has to resist the urge to slap her hands away. "We're here to bring Bellamy Blake home. Do you know where we can find him?"

"I don't generally give away employee information like this, Miss Griffin, Miss Reyes," Lemkin says gravely. "But I can pass on a message, and he'll meet with you if he's willing."

"We don't have time to wait," Raven says coolly. "In case you haven't noticed, the world is ending."

"What Raven means," Clarke interrupts before Raven can get into a fight, "Is that we know this is very sudden, but it's an urgent matter. PPDC business, if you get my meaning."

She hates this maneuvering, wishes she could get by without it, but Raven's right. From the sounds of things, they need to hurry. Lemkin sighs, looks her straight in the eye.

"The PPDC doesn't have as much weight behind its name as it used to," Lemkin points out, and Clarke has to suppress a wince. He's right. Since the Kaijus started learning how to outsmart Jaegers and public opinion shifted to support a useless Wall instead of fallen soldiers, their funding has been cut and their influence has reduced. What they're doing now is a desperate last stand. "But -" Lemkin adds pointedly. "Your old man Jake Griffin and his co-pilot Marcus Kane, they're the reason my daughter and I are still alive. They saved Walden back in 2017, and I haven't forgotten that debt. Just between you and me, you might be able to find Blake sealing cracks at the top. He says he likes the heights."

"Thank you," Clarke says gratefully, standing. There's a funny pressure in the back of her throat that showed up with her father's name, but she swallows it down.  _To the future_ , she thinks.  _That's all that matters now._  

Lemkin points them towards the lifts, but once they get there they realize it's not going to play nice with Raven's wheelchair. 

"It's fine," Raven says, waving Clarke off even though her face looks a little stormy. "Just go get Blake, all right? For both of us."

"We'll be back soon," Clarke promises, and she steps onto the lift. 

She realizes, just as it's slowing to a stop at the top-most level, that she's almost exactly at eye-level with a Jaeger now. No wonder Bellamy likes it here. She wonders if he knows why, or it's just ingrained in him now to feel at his most powerful - at his most secure - looking over the landscape through the eyes of giants. 

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants," Clarke murmurs, walking along the edge. 

"I've heard that one before."

She whirls around, and there he is, crouched in the dust with a caulking gun resting across his thighs. At first she thinks he hasn't changed at all, and then her eyes start picking out minute differences - a small scratch on his chin, nearly healed. Less shadows underneath his eyes, like he's finally started sleeping again since Wells' died in his head. A quiet, peaceful assurance as he meets her gaze evenly. 

She drops to her knees and flings her arms around his neck, breathing in the scent of dust and sweat and exhaustion. A choked gasp of his name escapes her, and she wants to swallow it back down immediately afterwards, wants to sink her teeth in it and chew it into pieces until they're too small to recognize for what they are. It's too much, too personal, too soon. His absence at the funeral service, his face in her sketchbook, his ghost lying next to her in Raven's bed. They love each other, all of them, achingly, and she wasn't ready to say it out loud just yet, because when you're a Jaeger pilot nothing is ever just  _yours_ anymore.

But Bellamy just wraps his arms around her tighter, his nose buried deep in the curve of her neck and exhaling there so she feels the warmth of all the words unspoken. 

"It's okay," he says. "I know. I know."

They pull away after an eternity, because Clarke reminds herself that Raven is still waiting for them on level ground, and they need her to complete their triumvirate.

"Are you ready to come home?" Clarke asks. She holds her breath. She could tell him about the wreckage in the harbour, about Kane's email, about lives possibly depending on his ability to say  _yes_ , but she doesn't, because she doesn't want any of those to be the reason he comes home to them. He wants him to return because he  _wants_ to, not because he  _needs_  to. 

Bellamy hesitates, looking over the edge of the wall. Not the one Clarke was turned towards, the side towards land. He's looking towards sea, towards the edge of the world as they know it. Out there is no-man's-land. It ceased to belong to them when Clarke was just a little girl. 

"You know," Bellamy begins, voice distant. He's eons away, shipwrecked on the past. "There are still memories in my head that don't belong to me. I spent weeks trying to separate it, figure out what was mine and what was Wells."

"I guess grueling manual labour is good for one thing," Clarke says. He laughs, lightly, and she feels it like sunlight gracing her cheeks on a cool winter morning. 

"It is," Bellamy agrees. "Lets me think during the day, and leaves me too exhausted to dream at night. It was just what I needed."

"So you figured it out, then?"

"No," he says. Finally he turns towards her, blinking. There is a smudge of dust on his left cheek, and Clarke wants very badly to brush it away and see the freckles splattered underneath. "But I don't hate it anymore. There was a dream I used to have, over and over again. You were... eight or nine, I think. Your hair was down to your waist. Wells' family got a new fridge, and you two stole the cardboard box it came in... you painted stars and windows on it and called it a spaceship."

"Our dropship," Clarke murmurs. "I'd nearly forgotten."

"It was such a vivid ghost memory that sometimes I'd wake up and I'd think maybe I grew up with you after all. And then I'd remember it was just Wells echoing around my head."

"I miss him too," Clarke says, even though she knows it's not quite the same. Wells was her best friend, and she Drifted with him too. But the imprints he's left on her brain are fainter, not as bruised, not burned into her neurons by a half-experienced death. Their pain is different. But the longing, the regret - Clarke understands that.

They sit for a while, kicking their legs over the edge of the world. 

"Have you spoken to O?" he asks. 

"Not much since Raven and I left active service," Clarke admits. "She sends me texts sometimes, selfies with K-Sci. But we haven't really left our cottage... until now."

"What's changed?"

Clarke looks at him guiltily. 

"I don't want you to come home because you feel like you have to. This - this doesn't change anything."

"It does," Bellamy says with a shrug. "Tell me anyway." When she doesn't answer immediately, Bellamy gives her a stern look. " _Clarke._ "

"Something's changed," Clarke says, licking her dry lips nervously. "Kane wouldn't tell me what it was over email, but - something's happened that has everyone excited. It could be good for us. They need you."

"Then let's go," he says, simply, and they ride the lift down together. From the top of the Wall, Raven looks very small wrapped in her red coat, but as she comes into focus Clarke cannot help but smile - they are together, at last, all three of them, and if civilization is to come crashing down around them, at least they will face it together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 7:26 AM January 4 2025]_  
_To:_  jordanjasper@ppdc.com  
_From:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  re: re: ?!?!?!

Mr Jordan, that is CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION that you are BLATANTLY DISPLAYING on social media!!!

Kane

_[sent 11:47 AM January 4 2025]_  
_To:_  kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_From:_ jordanjasper@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  re: re: re:?!?!?!

what, like the aliens have instagram? it's cool, my dude. 

\- [sunglasses emoji]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Octavia is the first one they meet at the Shatterdome. She's leaning against the hangar entrance, one foot propped up, a compact makeup mirror held aloft as she reapplies dark eyeshadow. She snaps it shut as she catches sight of them and peels off the frame, striding forwards with the smooth confidence of a predator in her own domain. The liberal amount of eyeshadow hides any softening of her feature until the very last moment, when she stretches onto her tiptoes to embrace Bellamy and all the hard, lithe lines of her body melt away. 

"Welcome back, big brother," she says, soft enough that Clarke feels like she's eavesdropping, and the moment she and Bellamy pull away, the fierce attitude is back. Clarke doesn't think it's an act, or a mask, not exactly. It's just a different aspect of Octavia, a face better known to the outside world. 

"So what's this big secret Kane wants to tell us?" Raven asks, rolling forwards and immediately reminding them this isn't just a reunion for a reunion's sake. 

"It's better if you hear Monty and Jasper explain it, I think," Octavia says, and she almost looks like she's wincing. "Come on, there's a conference room in K-Science we can use."

It's strange, being back in the Shatterdome after so long. Clarke follows at the back of the group, watching Bellamy and Octavia up ahead with their heads bent close together, whispering, and Raven in the middle of the pack, stopping every so often to high-five various J-Tech mechanics she's worked with in the past. Clarke sees flashes of people she recognizes too. It's hard not to get to know your Shatterdome family, after you live and work with the same people for months. But she feels the absence of certain people more strongly than she feels the presence of the ones still remaining, and it's a relief to escape into the conference room that Octavia leads them to. 

Another shock: Monty and Jasper turns towards them in uncanny unison, and each of them has a bloody eye on their mirrored sides. 

"What's happened to you?!" Clarke cries out, sweeping towards them and tilting Monty's face up to the light, and then Jasper's. 

"We... uh..." Jasper begins. 

"It was his idea," Monty says. "I only went along so it wouldn't get him  _killed -_ "

"You know the portable ponns?" Jasper says. Clarke glances at Raven out of the corner of her eyes and flushes, but Raven only gives her a little satisfied smirk. "Well, I thought, if the Drift can set up a connection between two human brains, why not a connection between  _any_ brains, and - okay, don't give me that look - we had a Kaiju brain sample, just a teeny one, it's like, the size of a watermelon, I figured  _how bad can it be? -_ "

" -  _Bad,_ " Monty interrupts grimly.

"Anyway the Kaiju gave me a seizure and Monty called first aid before I died and it's all okay now - "

"Only you would be crazy enough to try something like that," Raven interrupts, shaking her head. Behind her, Bellamy is standing with his arms crossed over his chest, looking so  _disappointed_ in them that Clarke would laugh if she weren't also horrified by K-Sci's unsupervised experiments. 

" _\- Except_ ," Monty says. "Jasper saw something in the Kaiju's memory that he thought could tell us how to defeat them. So naturally he tracked down a black market dealer - "

" - his name is Murphy and he freaks me the fuck out - " 

" - and he nearly  _killed_ us during negotiations, I mean he literally pulled out a gun and almost shot us because he thought we were undercover cops - "

" - we'd make  _such good cops -_ " 

" - no we wouldn't - "

" - yes we would! - "

" - we convinced him to let us get a brain sample from  _Azgeda_ for basically the entirety of the PPDC's remaining budget - "

" - because see, here's the crazy thing, the reason the Kaijus started beating us back so easily is that they all learned from their mistakes, every single one. They have a  _hivemind._ So if we Drift with one Kaiju, we Drift with all of them, we learn all their secrets - "

" - what we've been dealing with over the last few years, it's not even a full attack. For them it's just a practice run, figuring out our weaknesses, mapping our world. There's  _hundreds_ of them back in their homeworld and every single one is itching to kill us - "

" - so we went to cut up  _Azgeda_ with Murphy, and surprise surprise, it's _pregnant_ and the motherfucking  _baby_ tries to eat us - " 

" - but Murphy killed it and then we Drifted with it - "

" - if you think our eyes are bad now, you should have seen us then, we were bleeding  _everywhere_ , that thing nearly fried our brains! - "

" - and now we know how to defeat the Kaijus," Monty finishes, all in one rush of a breath. 

Silence. 

"I need to sit down," Clarke says faintly, and Octavia holds on to her elbow as she lowers herself into a nearby chair. Kane, Indra, and the Millers must have arrived somewhere in the middle of Jasper and Monty's overlapping summary of events, because now they are standing at the back of the conference room, faces drawn and serious. Clarke realizes this meeting is mostly for her, Raven and Bellamy's benefit. The others already have the stirrings of a plan. 

"The Drift is a two-way connection," Bellamy says, his voice low and dangerous. "Which means - you know how to defeat the Kaijus, but the Kaijus know that  _you know._ Did you think about what secrets they might see in your memories before you Drifted with the hivemind of an alien civilization that wants to wipe us out?"

Jasper cringes back, looking nervous, but Monty only squares his shoulders resignedly. 

"Those are consequences we're willing to take the blame for," he says. " _But_ , if everything goes right, we won't need to."

"Do your scribbles have anything to do with that?" Raven asks. While Bellamy was playing up his disappointed parent act, Raven quietly wheeled herself to the chalkboards that encompass a full wall of the conference room. Every single one is covered in equations Clarke can't even begin to comprehend, the writing small and neat.

"Yes," Monty says. He wrings his hands nervously. "I redid the equations - our Kaiju predictions have been slightly off for weeks now. It's why the double event was so devastating. This time, if my math is correct... We're facing a triple event in eight days."

"A triple event?" Clarke asks hoarsely. "That's - that's never happened before. Monty, we only have two Jaegers left."

"Not quite true," Miller mutters, and at his words, anxiety prickles through Clarke. 

"If I may step in now," Kane says, and all eyes fall on him as he strides forward. "Miller's right. We have the Mariposa Blue, of course, and the Millers' piloting Eagle Defiant - and we have a third Jaeger. It's not quite new, but it's strong and steady."

"No," Clarke says, staring straight at Kane. "Tell me you didn't."

"The apocalypse is happening in eight days, Clarke," Kane says through gritted teeth. "We're going to have only one shot at stopping the Kaijus, and if I have to cannibalize old Jaegers for even the slightest chance at winning, then I'll do that."

If he wants to say more, Clarke doesn't hear it, because she's out of the conference room and running for the hangar. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They find Clarke on the catwalks in the hangar, sitting with her legs over the edge, exactly at eye-level with the three dormant Jaegers. In sleep they don't give her the same sense of security and awe she used to get as a little girl hiding behind her father's legs. They are, like all of humanity, simply waiting for a fighting chance.

Raven's wheels clatter loudly over the metal paneling as they get closer, giving Clarke just enough time to wipe at her damp cheeks with the back of her hands and put on a weak smile that convinces neither of them. Bellamy sits down next to Clarke, just like at the Wall, and Raven parks herself on her other side with the warm weight of her hand resting on Clarke's shoulder. For a moment none of them say anything, simply taking in the hulking Jaeger across the hangar. 

"Does she have a name yet?" Bellamy asks first. His voice cracks slightly, and Clarke wonders if he's seeing the same things she is, the frame of the Conn-Pod that belonged to  _Rebel Phoenix_ , the curve of the elbow blades that weren't enough to save Wells, the echo of all his Drifts ingrained in steel and sinew. It's clear that they've only just finished building Ark's third and final Jaeger. Or - does it count as building if it's simply throwing together the remains of other Jaegers and calling it something else - as though that will erase the history in every screw and rivet of this body? For Clarke, it's not enough. She cannot forget.

They haven't had time yet to baptize her in a new coat of paint, and Clarke can still see where the pieces fit together, the jagged scars of plates welded together in last minute desperation. It's obvious where one Jaeger ends and the other two begin, from charred streaks where explosions have torn metal apart, to the paint Kaiju claws haven't quite managed to scrape off. Her left arm is from  _Princess Mechanic_ , since  _Rebel Phoenix's_ left arm is still probably resting at the bottom of the harbour, and Clarke can still remember raising that arm to fend off  _Natrona_ as Raven screamed an endless loop of agony into her mind. 

"No," Clarke answers dully. "No name."

A new name won't make a difference to her. 

"That's a Mark II nuclear core," Raven murmurs, leaning forward intently. "Practically ancient. They haven't made anything like it in 3 generations - "

"It's from my dad's Jaeger," Clarke says flatly. "From him and Kane. Ark's Justice _._ "

"Oh," Raven says, and that single syllable is heavy with understanding. 

"Wow, they've really gone all out, haven't they?" Bellamy says. He laughs, and there's no humour in it, just weary acceptance, because Bellamy Blake is in love with this world he's helped build, furiously and deeply, and a man like him only knows love as a means to be martyred. He's already accepted what Kane wants from them. "All our nightmares and regrets rolled up in one pretty Kaiju-killing machine."

Clarke sighs heavily and hides her face in her hands until the tears that have been threatening to resurface fade to nothing but a faint pressure behind her eyes. 

"Did Kane tell you the rest of the plan after I left?"

"Yeah," Raven says quietly. "When the Breach opens up to let the triple event through, he wants  _Mariposa Blue_ to drop a warhead through it and blow up the homeworld. He wants  _Eagle Defiant_ and..." she waves vaguely at the mismatched Jaeger standing in the shadows before them, " _that one_ to take the brunt of the attack so Octavia and Indra can get through mostly intact."

"Makes sense," Clarke mutters. "They're the fastest." 

The Millers' Jaeger is one of the strongest and most powerful, with a weight behind her punches that can split a Category III's skull open, but her sheer mass also makes her much slower.  _Mariposa_ is built for speed; quick, pivoting attacks that are almost elegant. She has the highest chance of getting to the Breach unstopped. 

"You've already guessed that Kane wants us to Drift, right?" Bellamy asks her. Clarke nods. She thinks her subconscious expected it ever since Kane asked them to bring Bellamy back from the Wall, but she just wasn't ready to admit it yet. "He says, mathematically speaking, that we have a good chance. We both had high sync rates with Wells. He's also... Raven, you tell her."

"It's not a good idea," Raven mutters. 

"None of this a good idea," Clarke counters, twisting towards her. "Tell me anyway."

Raven shoots Bellamy a glare over her head. 

"Kane's also offered to rig up a 3-way Drift, like Commander Woods had. Only I wouldn't be in the Jaeger with you... I'd be in the Command Room. Just to share the mental strain. I refused. You and Bellamy are already going to have an awful time avoiding the R.A.B.I.T, with memories like yours. Can you imagine if something triggered the memory of our last Drift? We'd drag each other into it, and Bellamy wouldn't be able to drag us out. It'd be two against one. I'm not taking my trauma into a Drift that potentially decides the future of humanity."

"Are you sure?" Clarke asks, even though she can tell by the stubborn set of Raven's jaw that she's made up her mind. 

"Course I am," she says. "But it doesn't mean I'm going to be useless. I'm going to learn all the nooks and crannies of this Jaeger and give you guys directions from the shore." A beat of silence, and then softer, like Raven hadn't meant to say this last part outloud, "You're going to need all the help you can get."

Clarke and Bellamy glance at each other. She can see the shadow of fear behind his eyes, the same she's sure is reflected in hers. Once upon a time she and Bellamy might have had a strong chance at co-piloting. If Clarke hadn't told Wells to do his compatibility tests first out of spite, she might have been paired up with Bellamy from the beginning. Wells might still be alive, and Raven might still be walking. But now - all the probability in the world can't predict whether she and Bellamy will be able to keep a balanced Drift without tipping over into their dangerous memories. And with the apocalypse coming in a week, there's no time to build a new Jaeger, one without their battle scars; or to take their time learning each other's minds.

For better or worse, they will take all their ghosts into the Drift with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke hisses between her teeth as technicians help her clamp her Drivesuit on, flinching against the cold spinal cord. She meets Bellamy's eyes over the bustle of the Drivesuit room, and he raises an eyebrow questioningly. She knows he's not unaffected by the familiar procedure, however, because his fists are coiled into tight, shaking balls at his sides.

"You okay?" he asks, after the technicians give her the all-clear and she walks to his side. 

"Are you?" she shoots back. 

"Fair enough," he grumbles, and they climb into the Conn-Pod. They hesitate, briefly, at the sight of the two motion rigs side by side, looking oddly like nooses at a lynching post. It's funny - they both know there's a good chance they're not coming back from this mission. But it's not death that Clarke's scared of. It's failure. It's the Drift. And she's willing to bet Bellamy has the exact same fears. "I can take the left side," he says, sounding strangled. "If it's hard for you."

It is hard. Clarke has to breathe through her mouth every time she catches so much as a glimpse of  _Princess Mechanic's_ salvaged left arm, fighting off panic as flashes of her last Drift pass through her mind. But she also knows she's willing to fight through that - and that piloting on that side will be sheer agony for Bellamy, ever since his Jaeger's left arm got torn off in his last battle and the overload burned circuitry into his skin.

"I've seen your arm, Bellamy," Clarke says, and she's proud that her voice comes out stronger than she feels. "You take the right. I'll be fine."

He gives her a grateful look as they strap in. Clarke takes as long a time as she can with the harness, knowing that as soon as she's done, there will be nothing left to occupy her hands and her mind. That is, until Raven's voice crackles on the communications. 

"Hey guys," she says, and the Drift may not have even begun yet but Clarke knows Bellamy's smiling at the sound of her voice just as much as she is. "How's it feel?"

"All right so far," Bellamy says. "What's it like in the Command Room, looking over all us lowly peasants?"

"Busy," Raven says flatly. "Kane's just about tearing his hair out. Energy levels are picking up, so Monty predicts the Breach will open up in less than an hour."

"I guess it's time to save the world," Clarke says softly. 

"Hey," says Raven, suddenly sounding urgent. "Hey, listen. When you guys come back, we're throwing all our shit into the back of my truck, and then we're going to drive someplace warm, all right? No more of this snow. I'm sick of snow. We're gonna go somewhere sunny, and we're gonna lie on a beach and make other people bring us mojitos, and we're going to slather Clarke in sunscreen because she's totally going to burn otherwise, and Bellamy you can tell us more of those myths you love so much and I promise I won't interrupt, and - "

Raven cuts off abruptly, sniffling, and Clarke reaches up to brush tears out of her own eyes before she remembers she's wearing Drivesuit gloves. 

"I like the sound of that," Bellamy says softly, filling in where they can't. "And Raven, when your monstrosity of a truck breaks down, we'll stand beside you looking really pretty and vapid while we hand you tools, and I'll cook you two the best meals you've ever had, and Clarke will draw us like one of her French girls - "

"She already has," Raven interrupts with a snigger. 

"Not like  _French girls,_ " Clarke says, rolling her eyes. "But yes, okay, I might have drawn you once or twice."

"You'll have to show me," Bellamy says, holding her gaze steadily, and Clarke almost wants to bolt out of her motion rig and run away with them, get as many precious days together as she can - but she doesn't. Because this is their only chance at making sure those precious days last longer. 

"Are you ready for the Drop?" Kane asks. 

_No,_ Clarke thinks. Bellamy nods at her, slowly. She breathes out through her mouth, and forces herself to nod back. 

"Yes," she breathes. And before she can change her mind, she feels the familiar lurch in her stomach as the Conn-Pod drops, settling onto its Jaeger's mighty shoulders. 

"Initiating in ten, nine, eight..." Kane counts, and she can hear Raven's voice counting along in the background, a harmony she never wants to reach the end of, and Clarke screws her eyes shut tightly. 

"Clarke," Bellamy says. "Clarke."

"I'm here," she whispers. 

"We're going to survive," he says. "Like Raven promised."

"...four, three, two..."

"Together," he says, and Clarke opens her eyes wide just as the Drift sweeps over them like a blindingly-bright tsunami - 

\- floodlights, shattering the darkness, and he flinches back violently, holding his shaking sister behind him, out of harm's way. The helicopters descend, blades hitting the air with hard slaps that he feels more than he hears, since the raid sirens hours earlier have left his ears ringing ever since. The helicopters' bright beams dart over rubble, the crumbled remains of his house casting sharp shadows. 

"Three survivors," a man on the intercom says as ropes descend from the helicopter. "We need first aid here - no, nevermind. Just two survivors - "

\- "I want daddy to come home," she pleads, clutching at her mother's arm as they view Walden's wreckage from a tv screen. "Please, mom, tell him to come. The Kaijus are going to kill him."

"Not now, Clarke, I have work to do," her mother says, shaking her off. Her voice is sharp with frustration. She doesn't even look over, her eyes still firmly fixed on the live reports the PPDC is sending through. "Clarke, let go, I need to do my job." - 

\- they're standing in a refugee camp full of blood and dust, all of them hollow-eyed and empty-handed, and he doesn't trust this man standing in front of him, this rich man who is too clean and too sure of himself. 

"We don't want charity," he snarls, even as Octavia's hand squeezes his tightly. 

"That's not what I'm offering," Kane says.

"You can't adopt everyone you feel sorry for," he says, still not trusting this man he has only ever seen on a tv screen, this celebrity that is too good to be true. 

"No," Kane admits quietly. "Just the ones that remind me of... someone." - 

\- they've dragged their spaceship out to the backyard, where it rests against tall grasses and wildflowers. The bottom of the cardboard box has gone soggy with moisture from the soil, but it remains a steadfast monument to adventure.

"I can see it!" she squeals, clasping her hands together and leaning out, eyes shining. "We're almost to the moon!"

"This is your captain speaking," Wells bellows, adjusting his too-big skiing helmet when it falls into his face. "It might be a rocky landing... Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for turbulence - "

\- flashing red lights, alarms squealing in their ears, the Kaiju won't stop coming at them, they only need a minute to catch their breaths, if they could just get a single minute, they grit their teeth and dismiss the warning of the dangerous leak in their core, the system is overheating and the Conn-Pod is sweltering, sweat drips into their eye and they're blinded for just a moment, a single moment, a moment long enough for the Kaiju to swing around and clamp its jaws down on their left arm, it  _tears_ and they scream, echoing endlessly;

_Bellamy, you're chasing the R.A.B.I.T, snap out of it!_  

they shatter in two, and he can't see anything over the searing pain of burning circuits against his skin, but he can still hear him screaming, 

_"Bellamy! Bellamy! Bellamy! Bell - "_

" - amy!" 

They are standing in swaying grasses once again, a bright summer sun shining on a world painted in technicolour. Up ahead two small heads bob among the wildflowers, one blonde and one deep brown. 

He turns, and Clarke's adult self is standing next to him, the bright casing of her Drivesuit out of place on the serene hill. Her face is soft with longing as she gazes up at the two children that have just reached the water tower.

"Remember him like this," she says. Little-Clarke is already climbing up the ladder, her camera bouncing against her chest as she swings on one foot to look down at Little-Wells beneath her. She calls for him to hurry up, the sun is going down, doesn't he know they're in a hurry?

"I'm sorry I chased the R.A.B.I.T," Bellamy says. He is still breathing heavily, but it's slowing down now, without the claustrophobic pressure of the Conn-Pod crushing around them. 

"I've done it too," Clarke says, gesturing with a gloved hand to the setting sun. "This is just... a happier memory. I thought it would be safer here."

"It is."

"Are you ready to go back now?"

_Yes. -_

_-_ "They're not responding, shut them down!" Kane barks over the intercoms. "Do it now!"

"Wait," they say as one, feeling the words echo powerfully between them. "We're in control now."

 "Are you sure?" Kane asks, voice harsh and strained. "Because if you're not, I'm not sending you out there to endanger this mission. Everything depends on you two being able to handle this."

"Send us out," they say. They roll their shoulders, feeling out the edges of their body, and then bring their fists together in a violently crisp salute. "We're ready."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jumphawk helicopters drop them a few minutes out from the Breach and ClarkeandBellamy instinctively take deep breaths as they plunge towards deep water, before remembering this body doesn't need oxygen. Underwater, what little light they'd had during transport quickly fades, leaving them peering blindly into darkness. 

"Mariposa? Defiant?" they ask the static. They get two replies back quickly. 

"Here."

"Up ahead."

_Can't see for shit._

_Trust in the radar. Command will guide us._

 

 

"First signature coming through the Breach," Raven's voice says in their ears. "Defiant, you're closest to it. Keep it off Mariposa at all costs."

"Got it."

_What do you know about Tartarus?_

_It's Greek?_

_It's a prison for the titans, deep underground. It's said it takes nine days to fall to the bottom. And once you're there, the horrors drive you insane._

_You're thinking of the Breach._

_Aren't we all?_

"Defiant, get ready," Raven says. "Category IV coming your way. We're naming it Azplana. 60 seconds out."

"Are you sure? We can't see anything," Miller says. 

"30 seconds," Raven says urgently. "On your right!"

"Where - " 

They tense as Miller's voice cuts off with an oof. 

"Mariposa, whatever happens, you  _keep going!"_ Kane shouts over the comms. 

_If we go down, is there any chance Octavia will ignore orders to try to save us?_

"Second energy signature coming out of the breach now," Raven says. "Clarke, Bellamy. This one's yours."

_She knows what's at stake._

_That's not an answer._

_It is an answer, it's just not the one you wanted to hear. Brace yourself._

They shut out the sounds of grunting over the comms as the Millers wrestle with  _Azplana._ Whatever this night calls for - mourning or celebration - they can do it after the mission. First, they have to survive. They raise their fists together in a salute as they continue towards the Breach, straining against the weight of the water. It's heavy on their shoulders, resisting every movement. The fight hasn't even begun and they are already sweating in the Conn-Pod, skin rubbed raw by the motion rig. 

"Another Cat IV," Raven says tersely. "We're calling it Natblida. On your left."

"It's dark as hell," they say, turning to the left and planting themselves firmly on the bedrock. The Jaeger has spotlights mounted on it, of course, but they don't seem to be piercing very far into the murky waters. Not keen to make  _Defiant's_ mistake, they ignore visuals and focus on the tiny red blip on the radar, approaching with every sweep. "Fuck, that thing's fast."

"10 seconds," Raven warns, and then it's on them - blindingly quick, with no more than a flash of a spined tail to alert them. Even knowing it's coming, they can't turn fast enough to avoid the shuddering blow it gives to their left side. They stagger with a pained gasp before they manage to stabilize themselves again. The Kaiju's head and back are heavily spiked, and systems flash red warnings as water starts to pour through small punctures in the Jaeger's hastily-constructed armour. They feel them like stabwounds to their own rib-cage, but there's nothing to do but battle through it long enough for  _Mariposa_ to get to the Breach. 

_Natblida_ comes around for another attack, going straight for the Conn-Pod. They raise their arms to fend off its prying claws, unsheathe the elbow sword on the right with a neat  _snick_ and cut a long slash across the Kaiju's belly. It retreats momentarily with an unearthly screech that reverberates through their metal casing, but a moment later it's on them again, scrambling violently for the Conn-Pod. 

_It remembers us._

_Stay with me. Stay here._  

They grapple with  _Natblida_ for what seems like hours, but the Kaiju is simply too quick, too lithe. Unlike the Jaegers, it's perfectly at home under tonnes and tonnes of crushing water, and avoids the overwhelming majority of their attacks. If they're having a rough time, _Defiant_ must be doing even worse. They learn to start predicting where the Kaiju  _will be_ and aim for that rather than where it  _is,_ and that helps, but not enough. They're breathing raggedly, dismissing warnings of more hull breaches as they come, and they've yet to score any serious injuries on _Natblida._

"Hurry it up, guys," Raven says in their ears. "Third energy signature coming through the Breach soon. Mariposa's almost there. You're going to have to keep them off her back."

"Trying," they grunt, hearing  _Defiant_ grunt a similar reply a moment later.  _Natblida_ whips its spined tail around their neck and squeezes. Circuits burst and metal starts bowing ever so slightly under the immense pressure, before Raven yells out a reminder and they press their palm cannons to the base of the Kaiju's tail, blowing it off. Blue Kaiju blood hangs in the water like a dark, inky cloud, too viscous to dissipate, and they unwind the remains of the tail from around their neck as _Natblida_ darts away to look for a new angle.

"Third Kaiju's nearly through," Kane says seriously. "Mariposa, do you have a visual?"

"Yes," they say faintly. "Kane, it's a Cat V. It's the biggest Kaiju we've ever faced."

_We're not going to make it. We're not going to win this. We're barely holding our own against two Cat IVs._

_Not yet. Don't you dare give up yet. We're still breathing, it's not over while we're breathing._

"Azplana got away," _Defiant_ pants into their comms. "Mariposa, it's headed for you. We're trying to catch up, it's completely ignoring us."

At that same moment, _Natblida_ whirls away from ClarkeandBellamy, headed towards the Breach with its sibling. 

_No! No, we have to keep Octavia safe -_

_\- I know, I know, let's go._

"We can't hold off three at once," Mariposa says, voices thick with fear. "Listen, if we detonate the warhead now, we can kill them."

"No," ClarkeandBellamy say, caught with a wave of fear and love for their little sister - 

\- he watched youtube tutorials to learn how to braid her hair, he learned how to cook for her from the Polish grandmother two houses down, he kept her hidden behind him when the Kaiju destroyed Walden all around them - 

_Bellamy, Bellamy, come back. Stay with me. We have a mission._

_The mission is to protect Octavia._

_The mission is to do whatever it takes to get the warhead through the Breach._

"If you take out the Kaijus but don't destroy the Breach, we won't have accomplished anything," Kane says in frustration. "Monty says the attacks will only become more and more frequent until we have double and triple events every other day. We don't have another shot at this. Do  _not_ throw away our chance to destroy the Breach."

"There's another way," Raven whispers, barely heard over the intercoms. ClarkeandBellamy labour to catch up to  _Mariposa_ , knowing they'll never get there before the Kaijus, knowing it's already too late. 

"What is it?" _Mariposa_ asks.

"No, I take it back," Raven says. "It's not worth the risk."

" _Raven,_ " they plead, desperation echoing within the Drift, a feedback loop of metallic fear, as biting as saltwater. 

"As long as I'm in command," Kane says. "I decide what's worth the risk."

"...Clarke and Bellamy's Jaeger. It's Mark II. If they blow up that nuclear reactor in their chest, it's roughly the equivalent of three warheads," Raven says reluctantly. Her voice is suddenly very small, and very young. ClarkeandBellamy remember that they made her a promise. But they made the world a promise first.

\- Wells' smile flashing in her camera lens, the taste of strawberries on her tongue, her first time getting a brainfreeze from too much ice cream too quickly -

\- his fingertips brushing against the velvet curtains in the living room, the crack of his favourite book's spine as he eases it open, seeing the Shatterdome for the first time and realizing this is his new home and his new  _people -_

"We'll do it," they say.

"Wait-" Raven says, and then she cuts herself off. 

"Yes?"

"Do it," she answers, voice cold and furious. "Kill those bastards."

"We can't hold them off anymore,"  _Mariposa_ says. "We're going to detonate."

A tremor of pain shoots through ClarkeandBellamy, nearly splitting them in half. They can feel hurt and disbelief coursing through them, and the part of them that is Clarke is almost glad that they are about to die, because she knows that the part of them that is Bellamy will never be the same after this. You never recover from a shift this momentous. In the grand scheme of their lives it is an earthquake, a chasm opening in the face of previously-unshakeable faith. They brace themselves against the bedrock and start mourning before it is even done. And then - 

"Indra,  _no!"_ Octavia screams, before her communications suddenly cut out. 

_Octavia!_

"She'll be safe in her escape pod," Indra says a beat later, her voice unusually tender. "Only one of us needs to be here to detonate. Make us proud, Bellamy Blake."

"Indra," they respond, voices hoarse. "Thank you."

"Make it worth it," Indra replies, suddenly urgent. Somewhere in the darkness, Octavia is rising swiftly to the surface, to safety. She is screaming, crying, beating her fists on the inside of an escape pod that feels like a coffin. She is still reaching for her partner's mind, the unexpected break of their connection like an open wound. On shore, in the Command Room, Raven has turned away from the feeds, her hand clasped over her mouth, her eyes searching out the nearest trash can to vomit in. At her side, Kane has lost feeling in his hands. He is mentally composing an email to Abby. He scraps the email. If the world doesn't end tonight, he knows he will buy a plane ticket and tell Abby in person that he has just ordered her daughter to die for the world.

 Three Kaijus descend on  _Mariposa Blue_ as one cohesive, vindictive whirlwind. Alone, Indra pushes a button, and the world goes bright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _*click*_
> 
> SYDNEY: The date is January 14th 2025, it's now 12pm. This interview is the second in a series to determine if Ark Shatterdome should be held responsible for the inefficient use of funds and resources. Please state your name and rank for the record.
> 
> _*134 seconds of silence, in which background shuffling noises can be heard, as well as an exasperated sigh thought to belong to interviewer Diana Sydney*_
> 
> SYDNEY: I don't have all day, Miss Blake. Please state your name and rank for the record.
> 
> BLAKE: Don't call me miss. I'm a Ranger.
> 
> SYDNEY: There, was that so difficult? Your full name, too.
> 
> BLAKE: Go to hell. 
> 
> KANE: Diana, please. Octavia's been through a lot in the last 36 hours, as we all have. Surely this can wait until after everyone involved has  _at least_ undergone psych evals?
> 
> SYDNEY: I didn't come here to be disrespected. Let me do my job, Marshall Kane.
> 
> BLAKE: Have you ever had someone die in your head?
> 
> SYDNEY: It's my interview, Miss Blake, I'm asking the questions.
> 
> BLAKE: Ranger. Ranger Blake. Why are you avoiding my question? Have you ever had someone die in your head?
> 
> SYDNEY: That's irrelevant to what - 
> 
> BLAKE: Oh, it's relevant. My co-pilot died so we could save the world, and now you come waltzing in here trying to sue us for it? Fuck you. Fuck all of you. You can go home and tell your supervisors to  _suck my metaphorical dick._   
> 
> _*click*_
> 
> Recording over. Press 1 to playback, press 2 to skip to next track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"-ellamy? Clarke? Are you there?"

"Yes," they gasp, blinking back the blind spots left on their vision. "We're here. What's your status?"

"Hull's breached in two dozen places,"  _Defiant_ answers. "We have to evacuate soon. But we're here for another few minutes. We'll watch your back."

"Thank you," they say, filling up with gratitude for Miller, who has always silently stood by their side, and his father, who has done all he can. "It's been a pleasure."

"Likewise."

"There might be another way," Raven says, breaking in on the comms. "We have Jumphawks ready at the Shatterdome. Give me a few hours and I can rig something up to make the Kaijus go boom. It's not - you don't have to do this."

"We do," they say, wishing it wasn't true. "We can't risk the Breach closing."

Their breath echoes in the Conn-Pod laboriously as they strain forward. The Breach is in view now, bright-blue and glowing against the bedrock like a wound, lighting up everything around it.  _Eagle Defiant_ stands just off to the side, one arm wrenched clean off, jagged puncture wounds dotting its thick armour. As they approach,  _Defiant_ raises its remaining arm in a salute. ClarkeandBellamy stand on the edge of the Breach, and mimic the salute. 

There is so much left to say and do, and no time left. 

"Goodbye," they say, and they let themselves fall forward. 

Just before the Breach, they hear Kane's cry of alarm, too late to heed, and the Cat V slams into them. For a moment they hang above the gaping chasm, limbs tangled with the Kaiju, ears ringing with shouts and orders from the Shatterdome. And then they fall through Tartarus' mouth and every other voice goes silent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_[sent 12:02 PM January 14 2025]_  
_To:_ kanemarcus@ppdc.com  
_From:_  griffinabigail@ppdc.com  
_Subject:_  re: come as quick as you can

Plane just landed, be there in half an hour. 

\- Abby

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cat V is monstrous, far bigger than anything they've ever seen or trained for before.  _Mariposa's_ blast has done more damage than they ever could in hand to hand combat, but even as they dig their metal fingers into the Kaiju's bright blue wounds and twist, it refuses to let go of them. Blinded by pain and fury, it tears at them without regard for its injuries.

_You better not be right about Tartarus. I can't keep this up for nine days!_

_We won't have to. Lets try the plasma cannons._

Underwater the plasma cannons had just bubbled uselessly, but the Breach seems to be made of some other element, perhaps some other dimension. They'll never know. All that matters is that the cannons charge to full heat. They swipe aside the system warnings of heat overload and radioactive danger. They've already accepted their fates - and besides, the Jaeger is already fated to explode. 

They release the plasma cannons into the Kaiju's already wounded side, and it shudders violently with the pummeling. Its movements go sluggish and weak, but it never stops fighting, not until its very last conscious moment, and it happens like this - they lower their guard, exhausted by the battle and lulled into false security by the Kaiju's death spasms, and it lashes out at the Conn-Pod, shaking them so hard that for a moment they fear the motion rigs will come detached from the cockpit and leave them with no more control. Something snaps, and they think of Raven's spine, but their fragile flesh-and-bone bodies are still intact. It takes them another moment to realize the right oxygen line has been cut, and the half of them that is Bellamy spirals into panic as he gasps for air and finds none. 

The half of them that is Clarke takes a deep breath, and detaches the left line. She plugs it into Bellamy's suit, and behind the glass mask his eyes are wide with fear for her, his head shaking in silent disagreement. 

_What does it matter now? We're about to die anyway._

_No, no, not yet. I told you, not until we stop breathing._

They pass the oxygen line back and forth with increasingly frustrated movements, hardly daring to believe the other has enough audacity to try to let them live longer.

_Come on, how long do you plan on doing this?_

_Until we can set off the reactor and launch our escape pods._

_Back through the Breach? Is that possible?_

_We have to try. There are people waiting for us on the other side._

ClarkeandBellamy start keying the necessary commands, and abruptly, two things become painfully clear. 

The first: There's a malfunction with the left escape pod. Clarke's escape pod. 

The second: The Cat V's dying thrashes caused too much damage to their systems to set the self-destruct sequence off automatically. It'll need to be done manually. 

Remember, there are no secrets in the Drift. The moment the thought passes through their minds, the half of them that is Clarke reaches out, and snaps the connection to a close. Like an elastic band, the recoil is sharp and immediate, stinging on every surface of Clarke's mind as she's left alone in her head. Next to her, Bellamy is wheezing in shock, pain and betrayal painted in every plane of his face. Drenched in the flashing red lights of hundreds of failure warnings, he looks bloody and otherworldly. She wishes they wouldn't remember each other like this.

Clarke unbuckles her motion rig and staggers to him, reconnecting the oxygen line to get him air. She presses their helmets together and wishes their faces weren't separated by glass, wishes she could kiss at least one of her loves goodbye. Instead, they gaze at each other through the visors, pleading for different things, different outcomes. 

"You said so yourself," she whispers to him. "There are people waiting on the other side."

"For both of us," he presses. "Clarke they're waiting for both of us. Don't do this."

There's no more time. 

Clarke disconnects Bellamy's oxygen, and punches his evacuation switch. Immediately the motion rig pulls his body up and away into the waiting escape pod. She watches him go with tears prickling in her eyes, feeling the echoes of his own pain as well as hers. Oxygen deprivation is already making her mind and body heavy with exhaustion but the battle is not over yet. The manual lever for self-destruction is at the back of the cockpit, simultaneously only a few steps away and an insurmountable distance. She takes the first step and crumbles, her body too weak to walk. She pulls herself to her hands and knees and crawls inch by grueling inch.

At the wall at the back of Conn-Pod she pauses to rest, black spots dotting the edges of her vision. The Conn-Pod is still lit by blood-red emergency lights, and Clarke suddenly thinks that she did not ever imagine dying here. She should have known her odds, as a Jaeger pilot - they were considered lucky if cancer took them early, like Jake Griffin. But when she imagined her death at the hands of a Kaiju, she always thought she'd at least be able to look up and see blue skies one last time. She didn't think it would be so  _red._

She cranes her neck up, wishing for sky, but sees only red glinting off the metal lever. She reaches weakly for it, and finds it too far away. Her hand drops, and she presses her cheek against the Jaeger's warm floor. 

"Come on, kiddo," Jake Griffin says, and suddenly his hands are shaking her shoulders, his arms wrapping around her ribcage and pulling her up just high enough that she can reach for the lever. Dazedly, she rests her fingers on it, but the movement costs her too much strength. She's too weak to pull it. 

"Dad," Clarke whispers. "Dad, am I dead too?"

"Not yet," he says. "You're going to pull this lever and then you're going to go back to your world and live, kiddo. You have so much left to see and do."

"I can't," she says, her head rolling back against his shoulder. "Too tired."

"You can do it. Two hands now. Come on, Clarke."

Somehow, she pulls the lever. All around her she feels the Jaeger creaking with the new command, preparing for its very last orders. She's glad to die alongside such a faithful friend. 

"50 seconds left, Clarke," Wells says, kneeling down next to her. "You got to get to your escape pod before it blows up."

"Malfunction," Clarke croaks. Her eyes flicker shut though she fights to keep them open as long as she can, wishing she could look at Wells as long as possible, to take one good memory with her into the afterlife. 

"Trust me," Wells says. "Just trust me. We're going to get you back to the surface."

She protests weakly as he picks her up and carries her back to the motion rig, buckling her in with sure fingers and finally, finally, resting his broad palm against her cheek. 

"Wells... I'm so sorry."

"There's nothing to forgive," he says, and then he steps backward and flips the switch to launch her escape pod manually. The last thing she sees is his gentle smile before the motion rig pulls her up into the waiting escape pod. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FROM THE PPDC CONFIDENTIAL FILES:

PERSONAL DOSSIER - PSYCH EVALUATION JAN 17 2025

**Name:** CLARKE GRIFFIN

**Identified Gender:** FEMALE

**D.o.B:** SEPTEMBER 23 2002

**Next of Kin:** ABBY GRIFFIN

            ~~JAKE GRIFFIN~~ (deceased, see _Mark II pilot files_.)

**Date of Active Service:** FEBRUARY 18 2023 

**Current Service Status:** INACTIVE, based ARK SHATTERDOME. EX-PILOT OF PRINCESS MECHANIC W/ RAVEN REYES (decommissioned, see _Mark V pilot files_ , _J-Tech files_.) EX-PILOT OF UNNAMED JAEGER W/ BELLAMY BLAKE (see _Mark V pilot files_.)

**Command Assessment:** Highly skilled in combat and tactical strategy. Works well under pressure. Respects command authority in majority of cases but has been known to disregard orders to minimize damage to civilians. Monitor closely. 

For Kaiju battle records, see _COMBAT ASSET DOSSIER._

 

 **NOTES:** GRIFFIN is scheduled to make a swift physical recovery. Emotionally and mentally she is exhausted but relatively co-operative with all medical personnel. 

GRIFFIN's retelling of her final moments in the Breach after BLAKE, BELLAMY's forced ejection can be found _here_ and has been the source of great frustration to those who believe she is intentionally fabricating her story. While it is obvious that GRIFFIN, JAKE and JAHA, WELLS did not physically manifest within the Conn-Pod to help her pull the self-destruct lever and eject her escape pod, it is not unlikely that the Drift hangover and oxygen deprivation led to hallucinations that renewed her emotional strength.

The true extent of Drift psychology will remain unknown to us, especially with the decommissioning of the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps after the conclusion of this mission. It is worth nothing that similar instances of what Drift psychologists call "ghost memories" or "ghost Drifts" have been recorded before. (see _Drift phenomenons: ghost Drift_.) A few years ago a popular urban myth spread via internet claimed that Jaegers sometimes moved when dormant or displayed other after-effects of sentience left behind by their pilots after Drifts, but this has been debunked long ago. We instead conclude that GRIFFIN's connection to her late father and her previous emotional distress at piloting a Jaeger partially comprised of the decommissioned ARK'S JUSTICE (see _Mark II Jaeger files_ ) was the cause of his appearance in her hallucinations. JAHA's appearance, of course, is a textbook example of ghost Drifting, as both both GRIFFIN and BLAKE shared multiple Drifts with him.

GRIFFIN has been cleared for discharge this January 17, 2025. We thank her for her service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is what Clarke remembers, afterwards. There are some things that cannot be captured by photographs, or summed in 140 characters, or recorded for posterity. Kane and the rest of the Shatterdome have done their best to keep the very last Jaeger mission under wraps, allowing only rumours and half-truths to escape to the world at large. Some things are not meant to be shared. Some things are meant to be kept, protected, savoured. 

After one last memorial held for one last fallen soldier, they throw all their worldly possessions into the back of Raven's truck and set off for horizons unknown. The world is bigger now, unhindered by the threat of death at any moment. They roll the windows down. Bellamy twists Clarke's hair into a half-braid to keep it from whipping into her face as she accelerates. Raven turns the music up, grins at them over the deafening clash of instruments, music that says  _I am here, I am alive, I am no longer afraid._  

It's not a happy ending from the start. The rules of the Drift don't apply to the post-apocalypse world. They relearn each other, slowly, like they should have from the start. They fight in tiny motel rooms, they negotiate on long stretch of highway with nothing to distract them, they forgive while curled up next to each other with the realization that they're lucky to be alive. They send postcards back to the Shatterdome whenever they can, knowing Kane will redirect them towards the people they're meant for. 

For the most part, they go their separate ways.

Octavia and Lincoln, mourning Indra's loss more keenly than any of them, vanish into the highlands for a few years. When they return Lincoln has a new tattoo on his back, that of a great tree with steady roots buried deep in the soil. Octavia's hair is cut in a severe bob, the ends of which tickle her chin when she turns her head too quickly. Lincoln didn't speak much to begin with, but Octavia's comparable silence is startling, at first. Bellamy thinks she's too young to be world-weary, but then, he's had someone die in his head too.  They start a summer camp for children orphaned by the Kaiju attacks, and they teach them how to be young again in strawberry fields and sparkling blue lakes. 

Monty and Jasper definitely do not set out intending to publish an autobiography together, but - they have so much _knowledge_ burning in their minds. They share nightmares for another two years after the apocalypse, waking up drenched in sweat and shaking off terrible memories they saw in the Kaiju hivemind. For many months they avoid saying aloud what they know the other has already thought of: that they could try using the Drift to heal. They enroll in a psychology study that wants to use Drift technology to let survivors face their traumatic memories safely. It takes a long time, but they heal. 

It's Maya's idea to turn their experience into words. At first Monty and Jasper try to write their autobiographies separately, but Maya throws their drafts into the air in frustration after the seventh time they've unintentionally written down the exact same paragraph. The Drift has tangled their lives too closely together. They give in and write their autobiography together. It's a bestseller. They split the profit in three. Jasper and Maya use a third to travel the world speaking about mental illness. Monty and Miller use a third to buy back the farm the Miller family was forced to sell at the start of the invasion. The remaining third goes to Octavia and Lincoln's summer camp, as an anonymous donation.

They are far apart, most of time, scattered across the planet by their busy lives. Time moves on. They send texts, emails, Skype when they can. 

But every three years, like clockwork, they return to the Ark Shatterdome, to a hangar gone silent and empty, to a row of gravestones with names but no bodies. They hold hands. They cry, they laugh, and even when the rest of the world starts to forget, they remember. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not happy with that last scene, but. Fuck, I'm posting it.
> 
> Fun fact: I drew that Bellamy at the beginning! Thought the close up of his eyes had a lil more punch than the full view of his face, which I'm p sure I haven't posted on tumblr yet, but who knows. There were a few more edits that didn't make the final cut, ie Jasper and Monty taking a selfie with the Kaiju baby, Clarke sending texts to Wells' number until it's deactivated, unsent letters from Bellamy's time on the Wall. This thing got ridiculously long.  
> Shout out to the following for helping me fake my way through apocalyptic social media:  
> [Fake tweets thingy](http://www.lemmetweetthatforyou.com/)  
> [Fake texts thingy](http://iphonefaketext.com/)  
> [Fake business card thingy](http://www.degraeve.com/business-cards/)  
> +photoshop and mspaint.
> 
> This story was a lot of fun from start to finish, honestly one of my very favourite stories I've ever written and... I'm just really sorry it took so long. Thank you for reading, for commenting, for getting into long discussions about Drift psychology that eventually developed into beautiful friendships...  
> Multiple readers have told me that this fic made them watch Pac Rim and they weren't disappointed, so - if you've made it this far and you still haven't seen the movie, go watch it! And then you'll be uptodate when John Boyega graces the sequel with his presence. 
> 
> Vive la Bravenlarke! I'm working on an acapella rivalry au... so... you might see that sometime in the next year. :)


End file.
